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GENERAL FRANKLIN PIERCE 
At 57 years of age 



DEDICATION 

OF . 

A STATUE OF 

GENERAL FRANKLIN PIERCE 

FOURTEENTH PRESIDENT 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES 



AT THE STATE HOUSE, CONCORD 
NOVEMBER 25, 1914 



ERECTED AND DEDICATED 

BY THE ' 

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 



<\ 






Edited by 

Henry Harrison Metcalf 

State Historian 



Published by the State 
1914 



)*N SO .9« 





THE STATUE 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

History of the Franklin Pierce Statue. 

For many years past the great majority of the people 
of New Hampshire, who take pride in the honor of their 
state, and the character and achievements of its able 
and distinguished sons, have felt that some fitting 
expression of regard for the name and fame of Franklin 
Pierce, fourteenth President of the United States, and 
the only native of New Hampshire to occupy the exalted 
position of Chief Magistrate of the Republic, should be 
made, in enduring form, for the benefit of generations to 
come, in impressing upon their minds the fact that last- 
ing public recognition of true merit and noble service is 
among the paramount duties of a free people. 

On several occasions, within the last few years, attempts 
have been made to secure the passage of a measure by 
the General Court providing for the erection of a suit- 
able statue, in the State House park, as a testimonial of 
the people of New Hampshire in honor of this distin- 
guished citizen; but, through partisan bitterness, grow- 
ing out of the Civil War, and the sectional and political 
controversies antecedent thereto and resulting therein, 
these attempts had failed, from factious opposition, 
though favored by the majority sentiment of the 
people's representatives, as well as by the people 
themselves. 

Fortunately the legislature of 1913, nearly fifty years 
after the delivery of Lincoln's immortal second inaugural 
address, with its "Malice toward none" and "Charity 
for all," found within its membership none so imbued 



with partisan rancor and prejudice as to offer sub- 
stantial opposition to such a just and worthy measure, 
and the following joint resolution passed both branches 
with practical unanimity, and was approved by the 
governor : 

Joint Resolution for the Erection of a Statue of 
Franklin Pierce. 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representatives in 
General Court convened: 

That the governor and council be hereby directed to 
cause a statue to Franklin Pierce to be erected in an 
appropriate place to be by them selected, in the state 
house yard, the material, design, workmanship and 
dedication to be left to the discretion of the governor 
and council; and that to meet the expense thereof the 
governor be authorized to draw his warrant upon the 
treasury for a sum not exceeding fifteen thousand dollars. 
Approved May 13, 191 3. 

At a meeting of the governor and council, July II, 191 3, 
an advisory committee, consisting of five representative 
citizens of the state, was appointed to act in conjunction 
with that body in the matter of the erection of the 
statue in question, as appears from the following copy 
of record : 

Executive Council Chamber, 

Concord, July 11, 1913. 

The Honorable Board met according to adjournment. 

Present: His Excellency Samuel D. Felker, Governor, 
and Councilors Badger, Gilman, Noone, Sawyer, and 
McGregor. 

The Governor with the advice of the Council made 
the following appointments: 

Advisory Committee relative to the Franklin Pierce 
statue: Franklin Pierce Carpenter of Manchester, Wil- 
liam E. Chandler of Concord, Clarence E. Carr of An- 



dover, Edgar Aldrich of Littleton, David E. Murphy of 

Concord. 

***** 

A true record : 

Edward N. Pearson, 
Secretary of State. 

A true copy of record : 

Edward N. Pearson, 
Secretary of State. 

On August 7, 1913, a joint meeting of the governor 
and council and advisory committee was held, Franklin 
P. Carpenter being elected chairman and Councilor 
William H. Sawyer, secretary. At this meeting it was 
voted that William E. Chandler, Edgar Aldrich and 
Franklin P. Carpenter be a committee to consider the 
style of the proposed statue; to secure models, bids and 
specifications, and to report at some future date. 

At a meeting of the governor, council and committee, 
October 30, 1913, it was voted to invite Mr. Augustus 
Lukeman of New York to inspect the State House 
grounds and confer with the governor, council and com- 
mittee with reference to plans for the statue, and that 
Mr. Carpenter be requested to inform Mr. Lukeman 
and to arrange the time for the conference, to which time 
the meeting was adjourned. 

On November 7, 191 3, the meeting was reconvened, 
the governor, all the councilors, and all members of the 
advisory committee, except Judge Aldrich, being in 
attendance, with Mr. Lukeman. A discussion of plans 
ensued, and a view of the grounds was taken, and it was 
finally voted to invite Mr. Lukeman to prepare and 
present to this body a model showing the general scheme 
of the proposed monument, as outlined by him, for its 
consideration. 

The governor, council and committee met, with Mr. 



Lukeman, December 31, in the Art room of the New 
Hampshire Historical Society for an examination of his 
design and model, after consideration of which they pro- 
ceeded to the Council Chamber at the State House, 
where, in the absence of Mr. Carpenter, who was called 
away, Judge AJdrich was made temporary chairman and 
Mr. ( arr secretary. 

1 1 was voted that the conception, the working model 
and plans of Mr. Augustus Lukeman of 145 West 55th 
Street, New York City, for the proposed Franklin Pierce 
statue be accepted at $14,500, and that Franklin P. 
Carpenter, Clarence E. Carr and David E. Murphy be 
constituted a committee to draft proper contracts, the 
same being subject to the approval of the governor and 
council. 

The contracts were promptly drawn, signed and 
approved, October 15, 1914, being fixed as the date for 
completion of the work. As time passed and the work 
progressed, the question of location commanded atten- 
tion, some division of opinion arising regarding the same, 
but the matter was finally settled in accordance with the 
judgment of the sculptor, and in due season the work was 
in position. 

The monument is built of granite and bronze, and 
stands on the south side of the Memorial Arch, on the 
State House grounds, fronting Main Street, on a line 
with the sidewalk. 

The scheme of the monument is simplified Greek, and 
takes the form of an exedra thirty-five feet by twelve 
feet. The stylobit, or platform, is inlaid with yellow 
vitrified brick, and flanked on either end are classic stone 
seats, while on the corners are granite pedestals on which 
are tall bronze electroliers. The heroic bronze statue 
stands on a granite pedestal in the center and a little to 
tli« back on the exedra, the four sides of which are suit- 
ably inscribed, as follows: 




AUGUSTUS LUKEMAN 
Sculptor 



On the east side, or front — 

FRANKLIN PIERCE 

FOURTEENTH 

PRESIDENT 

OF THE 

UNITED STATES 

On the north side — 

BORN AT HILLSBOROUGH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, 
NOVEMBER 23, 1804. 

A LAWYER WHO LOVED HIS PROFESSION 
AND WAS A GREAT LEADER IN IT 

MEMBER NEW HAMPSHIRE LEGISLATURE 

AT 25 AND SPEAKER AT 27 

CONGRESSMAN AT 29 

UNITED STATES SENATOR AT 32 AND 

RESIGNED AT 37 

LATER IN LIFE DECLINED THE OFFICE 
OF ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE UNITED 

STATES, THAT OF SECRETARY OF WAR, 

THE UNITED STATES SENATORSHIP AND 

THE GOVERNORSHIP OF HIS STATE. 

PRESIDENT OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE 

CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 
DIED AT CONCORD, OCTOBER 8, 1869. 

On the south side — 

BRIGADIER GENERAL U. S. A. 

PUEBLA 

CONTRERAS 

CHERUBUSCO 

MOLINO DEL REY 

CHAPULTEPEC 

COMMISSIONER APPOINTED BY GENERAL 

SCOTT TO ARRANGE AN ARMISTICE 

WITH GENERAL SANTA ANNA 

"HE WAS A GENTLEMAN AND A 
MAN OF COURAGE." 

ULYSSES S. GRANT. 



8 

On the west side, or rear — 

ERECTED BY THE 

STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE 

1914. 

The statue represents President Pierce standing in an 
easy position with his right hand resting on a conven- 
tionalized pedestal of fasces draped with the American 
flag, on which is also a manuscript with the seal of the 
state, while his left hand rests against his hip. The 
costume is of the Fifties, with its high neckstock and soft 
shirt-front, broadcloth frock-coat and square-toed boots, 
while over his shoulders is thrown a military cloak of the 
period. 

The statue is cast in United States standard bronze, 
the alloy of which is 90 per cent, of copper and 10 per 
cent, of tin and zinc. The weight of the statue is 2,230 
pounds. The granite pedestal is made of Concord gran- 
ite, and the entire work, design, plan and scheme, includ- 
ing the modeling and execution of the statue and the 
designing of the electroliers is the work of the sculptor, 
Augustus Lukeman. 

Circumstances delayed the formal dedication of the 
statue, which was finally arranged for November 25, 
with Hon. Clarence E. Carr as president of the day, Rev. 
George H. Reed, D.D., chaplain, and David E. Murphy, 
marshal. The program included an oration by Hon. 
Oliver E. Branch of Manchester, with addresses by 
President Carr, Mr. Carpenter, Governor Felker, Judge 
Aldrich, ex-Senator Chandler and William F. Whitcher 
of Woodsville, and music by Nevers' Third Regiment 
Band of Concord. 

At eleven o'clock a.m., on the day set for the dedica- 
tion, a procession was formed in front of the Eagle 
Hotel under the direction of the marshal, headed by the 



band, the officers and speakers of the day, governor, 
council, committee and invited guests, and proceeded 
to the space in front of the statue for the unveiling. 

After the ceremony of unveiling, it had been planned 
to introduce Mr. Augustus Lukeman, the sculptor, but, 
Mr. Lukeman being detained by illness, President Carr 
made fitting reference to the disappointment, and paid 
a brief tribute to him and his work. The company then 
proceeded to Representatives Hall, which, with the 
spacious gallery, was entirely filled, and the speaking 
program was fully carried out, the exercises having been 
enlivened with music by the band, opening with the 
overture, "II Guaranay" — Gomes. 




MISS SUSAN H. PIERCE 



DEDICATORY EXERCISES. 

Mr. Carr, Introducing Miss Susan H. Pierce: 

To grace this occasion and assist us in these cere- 
monies, we are fortunate to have with us kinsfolk of 
Franklin Pierce. 

To Miss Susan H. Pierce, daughter of Hon. Kirk D. 
Pierce of the old town of Hillsborough and grandniece 
of President Pierce, fittingly is accorded the honor of 
unveiling this statue. 



Mr. Carr, Referring to Mr. Lukeman: 

By love of art and through long years of labor is genius 
developed. With us we expected to have a distinguished 
vsculptor who knows the cost and ungrudgingly has paid 
the price. He was a student of one of the best known of 
the world's sculptors, a son of New Hampshire, whose 
advice in this composition has been freely sought and 
gladly given. 

In the love of his art, from the concept of his brain, 
and with the cunning of his hand he has wrought for us. 
We behold his story in bronze, and had he not been 
detained by illness we would have gladly have welcomed 
here to-day its author, — the artist and sculptor, — Augus- 
tus Lukeman of New York. 



12 



Mr. Carr, Calling upon Doctor Reed for the 
Invocation: 

When the horror of the cataclysm across the sea broke 
upon us, men exclaimed, "Can this be possible among 
Christian nations?" "What of our boasted Christian 
religion?" "Is it a failure?" 

In the brief period since, we have seen a million men 
destroyed, a principality crushed, an innocent people 
ruined. Unnumbered sorrows have been added to un- 
measured woe. 

But, behold! In spite of all, with steadied judgment, 
new courage, and clearer vision, we begin to see and 
understand the abiding strength of the true spirit of 
the Christian religion. 

All history and all experience teach us that however 
false a nation's interpretation of that spirit, however 
wrong its point of view, and however far astray it may 
go, there is no change in the judgments of the Lord or 
His purposes. They are true and righteous. 

In the supreme moments to come the world will need 
much and expect much of American Christian citizen- 
ship. 

It is fitting and proper then on this occasion, as on 
all public occasions, that, striving for the true spirit of 
the Christian religion, we seek Divine help to bring us 
in harmony with Divine purposes. 

Let us join Doctor Reed in prayer. 




REVEREND GEORGE H. REED, D. D. 
Chaplain of the Day 



13 



PRAYER BY REV. GEORGE H. REED, D.D. 

A LMIGHTY GOD, our heavenly Father, we who 
-**■ know not what to pray for as we ought, do now 
seek the guidance of Thy Spirit that we may see and 
perceive and understand and remember the significance 
of this hour. 

May the monument that we dedicate this day keep 
us from forgetting the debt that we owe to those who 
have gone before us, and to those who shall come after 
us, and therefore to this generation, to ourselves and to 
Thee. 

Hear Thou our prayer that as long as this statue shall 
stand in its strength and dignity, it may remind the 
young men of each rising generation that in the land 
which the Lord their God hath given them it is possible 
to pass from the common school and the humble home to 
the high places of power. 

But from a generation of seekers after place, O Lord, 
defend us! May men ever esteem fitness for office more 
to be desired than election to office, and the privilege of 
serving the public the greatest honor the public can con- 
fer upon them. 

We thank Thee for the gifted men whose vision and 
toil and sacrifice have made possible the freedom in which 
we rejoice this day. Continue unto us the mercies 
wherewith Thou hast blessed our fathers. Lead Thou 
our leaders. Grant unto the president of this republic 
and unto all governors, magistrates and judges the spirit 
of wisdom, of justice and of mercy. 

Give unto all who make and interpret our laws rev- 
erence for Thy laws. Teach Thou our teachers, that the 
men and women of to-morrow may come forth from our 
schools and colleges with wise counsel and high resolve 
to serve their country and their God. 



14 

We pray for all those who mould public sentiment 
through the printed page, from the platform and in the 
pulpit, that they may plead with sanity and boldness 
for that which is right in Thy sight, seeking ever the ap- 
proval of God rather than the praise of men. 

Prosper all honorable industries and incline the hearts 
of all employers of labor to do unto men as they would 
that men should do to them. 

Defend us all from every unhallowed ambition and 
grant that with breadth of vision, fairness of judgment 
and sincerity of heart we may finish the work and fulfil 
the hopes of those whom we hold in grateful remem- 
brance. 

And all that we ask for America we seek for every 
nation on earth. Especially do we pray with one heart 
and with one voice for the nations now at war. We 
thank Thee for the men in every army who believe that 
their cause is just, and that they serve the living God. 

O Thou whose ways are higher than our ways and 
thoughts are higher than our thoughts as the heavens 
are above the earth, give Thou the victory to those who 
shall use it best. Turn all men from the fierceness of 
their anger and the folly of their strife unto the service 
of Him who was lowly in heart, who made himself of no 
reputation and who was willing to live and to die for 
men, unto whom Thou hast given the name that is above 
every name. 

In His name we seek these unmerited blessings, the 
forgiveness of our sins and the power to serve Thee 
better. Amen. 



15 



MR. CARR'S ADDRESS. 

V/'OUR Excellency, the Honorable Council, Members 
A of the Franklin Pierce Statue Commission, Ladies 
and Gentlemen: 

By Chapter 258 of the Session Laws of 19 13, the 
General Court of New Hampshire adopted the following 
joint resolution: 

That the governor and council be hereby directed to cause 
a statue to Franklin Pierce to be erected in an appropriate 
place, to be by them selected, in the state house yard, the 
material, design, workmanship and dedication to be left to 
the discretion of the governor and council ; and that to meet 
the expense thereof the governor be authorized to draw his 
warrant upon the treasury for a sum not exceeding fifteen 
thousand dollars. 

This is the authority for our action. 

The Governor and Council invited to join them as an 
advisory commission to carry out the will and intent 
of the General Court, Franklin Pierce Carpenter, 
William E. Chandler, Edgar Aldrich, David E. Murphy 
and Clarence E. Cam 

A full account of the work of the united bodies will 
be a part of the public records. 

Franklin Pierce was born in Hillsborough, New Hamp- 
shire, November 23, 1804. He was educated in acad- 
emies at Hancock, Francestown, and Exeter, and at Bow- 
doin College. Among his classmates were Senator John 
P. Hale, Professor Stowe, that wonderful orator Sergeant 
S. Prentiss, the poet Longfellow and the novelist Haw- 
thorne. Studying law with Levi Woodbury, and at the 
law school at Northampton, Massachusetts, and with 
Judge Edmund Parker, he was admitted to the bar in 
1827. He was elected a member of our legislature in 



i6 

1829, served there four years, the last two as speaker, 
was sent to Congress in 1833, and remained there till his 
election to the United States Senate in 1837. Owing to 
ill health he resigned his seat in 1842, and returned to 
New Hampshire and to his law practice. In 1839, he 
removed to Concord where he ever after made his home. 
In 1845, he declined an appointment to a vacancy in 
the United States Senate, the nomination as governor 
of New Hampshire, and an appointment to the office of 
attorney-general of the United States. In 1846, at the 
opening of war with Mexico, he enlisted as a private, was 
appointed colonel, and March 3, 1847 was commissioned 
brigadier-general in the volunteer army. He was com- 
mended for conspicuous bravery. He resigned his com- 
mission at the close of the war, and in March, 1848, 
returned home, and by the General Court of this state 
was voted a sword in honor of his services. He was a 
member, and president, of our Constitutional Convention 
held in 1850. In January, 1852, the New Hampshire 
Democratic State Convention, against his protest, de- 
clared for him as its candidate for the Presidency; he was 
nominated in the Baltimore convention in June of the 
same year, and elected by a large majority in the Novem- 
ber following. 

He died in Concord, October 8, 1869. 

Such is the bare and naked outline of a remarkable 
career. 

History has measured his work and estimated his 
worth. 

Courtly, brave and chivalrous, he was loved as few 
men have been loved in New Hampshire, and honored 
beyond any other of her sons. 

Not alone was Franklin Pierce the only New Hamp- 
shire President, but he was the last president furnished 
by one of the smaller states, unless we reckon New 




CLARENCE E. CARR 
President of the Day 



17 

Jersey as a smaller state. He came near the close of a 
definite period of our history which was ended by the 
Civil War; which, in turn, accustomed the nation to the 
massing of great bodies of troops or voters. That is, 
the regiment, so to speak, ceased to figure in political 
strategy, and we thought and dealt in divisions and 
corps; in other words, with large* bodies of men and 
larger and more pivotal states. Have we worked 
through another period? Are we coming to a third? 
Is the division of state lines to be more and more ignored 
as we seek The Man? 

Is there to grow out of the present world-wide up- 
heaval a wider and better nationality with fading border 
lines based on the fatherhood of God and the brother- 
hood of Man? May the sons and daughters of New 
Hampshire, be wise and fit. Our noblest and highest 
duty is to become good, upright, efficient and patriotic 
American citizens. 

It has been said that one of the crowning glories of the 
life of Stephen A. Douglas was when, in March, 1861, he 
stood by his great rival and held the hat of the after- 
wards martyred President during the delivery of that 
memorable inaugural, and thenceforth devoted the great 
powers of his intellect and the patriotism of his soul to 
the cause of the Union. 

We, too, might say that one of the crowning glories of 
Franklin Pierce's career, illustrating his chivalry and 
foresight, was when in the storm that followed Webster's 
seventh of March speech, he understood and defended 
the physically enfeebled statesman from the bitter and 
senseless attacks of an angry and misunderstanding 
people. Subsequent events vindicated Webster's vision 
and patriotism and honored Franklin Pierce for his 
understanding and his chivalry. 

It is fitting that we place his statue under the shadow 



of our capitol, there to stand as long as the state stands, 
with Stark and Hale and Webster: — Stark who, with 
his New Hampshire men, struck the blow at Bunker Hill 
that gave heart and hope to a cause, and the blow at 
Bennington that made possible one of the decisive battles 
of the world, gave us a nation and sent a British king 
back across the sea; Hale who struggled for the freedom 
of a race; and Webster whose mighty vision made pos- 
sible that broader field of opportunity and that greater 
liberty which blesses our people and will eventually bless 
all the races of men. 

Proud of Franklin Pierce as a citizen, honoring him 
with every office in her gift, loving him for the sweetness 
of his ways, glorying in the exalted station to which he 
was called by the voice of the people, New Hampshire 
honors him again with this statue to his memory. It 
is no light thing to be thus honored by a state that, 
though it measures so little in square miles of territory, 
yet weighs so much and has meant so much in the mould- 
ing and upbuilding of a nation. 

The tributes paid him, and to be paid him, by strong 
and sterling men opposed to the party and theories of 
government for which he stood, attest his patriotism, 
the integrity of his purposes and the charm of his per- 
sonality. 



Mr. Carr, Introducing Mr. Carpenter: 

Among the many citizens of New Hampshire who love 
her, — and we all love her, — and who have been constant 
in their devotion to her interests and the extension of 
her enterprises, is the chairman of the committee called 
in consultation by the governor and council on the 
Franklin Pierce statue. His name is an earnest of things 




FRANK P. CARPENTER 



19 

done. He has given time and whole-hearted devotion 
to this cause, and the statue is properly in his hands 
for disposition. 

It is my pleasure to present the chairman of the Pierce 
Statue Commission, Honorable Frank P. Carpenter of 
Manchester. 



MR. CARPENTER'S ADDRESS. 

\\ TE ARE met to-day to pay our tardy tribute to one 
» » of New Hampshire's noblest sons, a soldier and a 
statesman — to that one who, alone of all the great men 
born in the Granite State, received the highest honor and 
bore the heaviest responsibility to which American citi- 
zenship is liable. We honor him to whom was given the 
task of guiding the destinies of the nation when vast 
forces were working for the ultimate good, but which, 
during his leadership, had failed to take form and direc- 
tion. He assumed office on the eve of that great conflict 
which was to wipe out human bondage. He was called to 
administer the nation's affairs when the southern half 
of our people were convinced the North was intent upon 
dominating in violation of constitutional rights, and the 
northern half was equally sure the South proposed in- 
definite expansion of the institution of human slavery. 

It has required years with their healing touch to soften 
the animosities of his time, to wipe out that fierce bitter- 
ness which enveloped all who were then prominent in 
national affairs. To-day we hail this son of New Hamp- 
shire as one who worked faithfully in performing the 
duties of his high office, and we seek to perpetuate the 
memory of him who did not fear to stand for the right, 
as he saw it, and stand unflinchingly. 

It was given me as a youth to know him personally. 
My father was his friend, supporter and admirer. It 



20 

has been one of the chief joys of my service on this com- 
mission that I could do my part in honoring his memory. 

It is therefore with keenest pleasure, on behalf of the 
commission of which I have the honor to be chairman, 
to present to you, and through you, to the state, whose 
generosity has made it possible, this splendid statue of 
Franklin Pierce, fourteenth president of the United 
States. 

This bronze, heroic in size, is the work of one of Amer- 
ica's foremost sculptors, Augustus Lukeman of New 
York City. 

It gives us in enduring form a reminder of a life which 
saw its beginning amid the Granite hills of New Hamp- 
shire, but which comprehended in its influence and 
achievements our whole broad land. May it always be 
an inspiration to unselfish patriotism and lofty ideals of 
public service. 



Mr. Carr, Introducing His Excellency, Governor 

Felker : 

The dedication of this statue to-day marks but one of 
many noteworthy achievements in New Hampshire in 
the last two years. 

The real legislative accomplishments, the efficiency in 
business conduct of affairs of state, and the sagacity and 
economy of this administration will compensate our 
chief executive for the care he has given it and the task 
he has performed. 

No governor within my knowledge, — and the com- 
parison is not invidious, — has conducted the business of 
this state with greater economy, efficiency and success, 
or with a more faithful and patriotic devotion to his 
duty and her interests, than his Excellency, Governor 
Felker. 




HONORABLE SAMUEL D. FELKER 
Governor 



21 



GOVERNOR FELKER'S ADDRESS. 

]V/f R. CHAIRMAN, Ladies and Gentlemen: 
■*■-*■ Mr. Blaine says in his "Twenty Years of Con- 
gress," "for forty years previous to the war, the North 
and South were growing apart, with different aims, with 
different interests, and looking toward different destina- 
tions." This was largely due to that section of the Con- 
stitution which provides that "no person held to service 
or labor in one state under the laws thereof, escaping into 
another, shall in consequence of any law or provision 
thereof, be discharged from such service or labor, but 
shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such 
service or labor may be due." 

The framers of the Constitution were sorely tried, with 
reference to the question of slavery, and were naturally 
opposed to it, but in order to have the Constitution 
adopted by the states of the Union they were obliged to 
acquiesce in the above section. 

The great leaders before the Civil War looked upon the 
Federal Constitution as a series of compromises among 
conflicting interests, and they really believed the Union 
at times to be in danger, and always met it by a spirit 
of compromise, especially with reference to slavery, as in 
the case of the Missouri compromise of 1820, when the 
Louisiana purchase became available for states; and that 
of 1850 when the war with Mexico had given us a large 
amount of territory. 

"Our whole history," said Rufus Choate in 1841, "is 
but a history of compromises." But as the country 
gradually became a nation, and ceased to be a confed- 
eracy, it could not be a nation of freemen and a nation of 
slaves, half free and half slave. 

The South reasoned that if slavery was excluded from 
the territories they themselves were virtually excluded 



22 

from living in any of them with their families as then 
constituted. That there was danger to the Union the 
Civil War sufficiently proved. When it did occur, the 
North had increased in population much more than 
the South, its means of transportation greatly increased, 
and four states of the South remained with the North, — 
and still such was the belief of the South in their right 
to withdraw from the Union and their determination to 
do so that it took one of the greatest wars of modern 
times to prevent such withdrawal. 

With the abolishment of the Missouri compromise, the 
pent up forces of the North which had been gathering 
from the beginning were set free. On the Fourth of 
July, 1854, Garrison burned the Constitution of the 
United States, saying that "the Union must be dis- 
solved." "We confess," said Wendell Phillips, "that 
we intend to trample under foot the Constitution of this 
country." "Slavery is a covenant with hell," "the flag 
is a flaunting lie," were other expressions of the period. 
Even Wendell Phillips, the orator of the abolitionists, 
described Lincoln after his election to the Presidency as 
"the slave hound of Illinois." 

That there is, indeed, a higher law than mere statute 
law; a higher law than any decision of the court; a higher 
law than any written constitution, has not always been 
recognized. That law is the law of public opinion, 
especially strong when the demand is backed up by the 
universal conscience of mankind. And that higher law 
of public opinion eventually overthrew constitutional 
provisions, and led to the Civil War, and to a practical 
revolution in the thought which had been dominant 
from the beginning of our government. 

The compromise measure of 1850 was adopted by the 
platforms of both the Democratic and Whig parties in 
the year 1852. 



23 

When the Democratic convention met in June, 1852, 
the leading candidates for the nomination were James 
Buchanan, Stephen A. Douglas, Lewis Cass, and William 
L. Marcy, all men of national reputation, but no one of 
them was able to secure enough votes to obtain the nom- 
ination, and on the forty-ninth ballot General Pierce of 
New Hampshire, who had not been a candidate, was 
nominated. He was a man of rugged ancestry, the son 
of General Benjamin Pierce, who, at the age of seventeen 
left the plow to enlist in the army of the Revolution in 
1775 and who stayed in that war until its finish in 1783 
— eight years; who was afterward connected with the 
militia of New Hampshire until he was raised to the com- 
mand of the same; ten times elected councilor of the 
state; three times high sheriff, and twice governor of the 
state; a leader of thought and of men, who had taken 
up his abode in the town of Hillsborough, and from 
poverty had risen to the rank of the most independent 
and intelligent farmers in that town. General Ben- 
jamin Pierce died in 1839, having participated in the 
war of the Revolution, and having entered into and 
been a leader in connection with the adoption of the 
Constitution of the United States. Of such a father was 
Franklin Pierce, born on November 23, 1804. Oft and 
repeatedly he had been told of the deprivations of the 
Revolution, and of the baptism of fire and blood, and 
learned at his father's knee patriotism and a love of the 
government under which he lived. His father had in- 
tense political convictions and was a follower of Jefferson 
and Jackson. 

After finishing his course at Bowdoin College, in 1824, 
he read law with Judge Levi Woodbury of Portsmouth, 
and Judge Edmund Parker of Amherst, and was admitted 
to the bar in 1827 and commenced practice in his native 
town. His first case was somewhat of a failure and to a 



24 

friend he said: "I will try nine hundred and ninety-nine 
cases if clients will continue to trust me, and if I fail as I 
have to-day, I will try the thousandth. I shall live to 
argue cases in this court room in a manner which will 
mortify neither myself nor my friends," which certainly 
proved true, for he was considered one of the best jury 
lawyers of the state. 

At the age of twenty-five he was elected to the New 
Hampshire legislature and was three times re-elected, 
serving the last two terms as speaker. In 1833 he was 
elected to the lower house of Congress where he remained 
four years, and then entered the United States Senate, 
the youngest member of that body. He was there asso- 
ciated with Webster, Calhoun and Clay, and other great 
leaders of the times. 

In 1842 he resigned his seat in the Senate and returned 
to the practice of law in Concord, New Hampshire. In 
1845 he was tendered the appointment as United States 
Senator but declined; he also declined the nomination for 
governor, and in 1845 President Polk offered him the 
United States attorney-generalship, which he also de- 
clined. He was certainly not an office seeker, and few 
men, in the prime of their lives, would have given up 
a seat in the United States Senate for the practice of law. 

When the war broke out with Mexico he enlisted as a 
private in a volunteer company at Concord, and was 
soon appointed colonel of the Ninth regiment of infantry. 
In March, 1847, President Polk appointed him brigadier- 
general in the volunteer army and in the same month he 
set sail for Vera Cruz, and was with General Scott when 
he entered the City of Mexico, and was one of the 
commission to agree on an armistice. On the return of 
peace in December of the same year he returned to 
Concord and once again entered into the practice of his 
profession. 



25 

In 1850 he was president of the Constitutional Con- 
vention, and made a strenuous and successful effort to 
eliminate the religious test from the state constitution. 
In the campaign which followed General Pierce's 
nomination as President he was triumphantly elected 
over General Scott, the Whig candidate, receiving two 
hundred fifty-four electoral votes to his opponent's 
forty-two. He was then forty-seven years of age. His 
personal appearance was dignified, if not imposing, al- 
though he was but five feet and nine inches in height, 
slenderly built, without that depth of chest or breadth 
of shoulders which indicates a vigorous constitution; his 
complexion was pale, and his features were thin and care- 
worn, yet his deportment was graceful and authoritative; 
he was capable of enduring great physical fatigue. 

His inaugural was a plain, straightforward document, 
national in tone, and stirred the hearts of the vast 
audience which heard it, like the clarion notes of a 
trumpet. 

"It is my judgment," said Harry Bingham, "that I 
have never known a more clear headed man than Franklin 
Pierce, or one who surpassed him in patriotic devotion 
to his country and to his whole country, or one who had 
stronger convictions of the paramount value of the Amer- 
ican Union, and that to maintain it, the rights of all sec- 
tions as guaranteed by the Constitution must be re- 
spected. No man surpassed him in qualities of the heart, 
and the consequent amicability of manner and general 
courtesy with which he always met his fellow-citizens 
caused him to be universally beloved and respected." 
No one President ever won the affections of the people 
of Washington so completely as did General Pierce. 
The President's fascinating courtesy and kindness were 
irresistible. So lasting was this feeling among all classes 
that twenty years later, our Congressman, Hon. Hosea 



26 

W. Parker, says: these traits were often spoken of at the 
Capital. 

President Pierce appointed one of the strongest cab- 
inets of any President in the history of the United States, 
with Marcy of New York as secretary of state, and Caleb 
Cushing, attorney-general, and one which remained with 
him to the end of his term. 

He entered upon his term of office with the firm convic- 
tion that the compromises of the Constitution must be 
fairly met in order to maintain and preserve the Union, and 
with this knowledge the country elected him by an over- 
whelming majority. Buchanan said : " I know you to be a 
States Rights Democrat of the old Jeffersonian school." 

During his term the boundaries of the United States 
were extended by treaty with Mexico and included what 
is now a part of New Mexico and Arizona; a commercial 
treaty was made with Great Britain, the fishery rights 
settled, Japan was opened to civilization by Commodore 
Perry, the United States Court of Claims was established, 
and in every department the government was honestly 
and efficiently administered, and everyone admits that 
aside from the slavery question President Pierce met the 
expectations of the country. 

"But for slavery," said Senator Bainbridge Wadleigh, 
"and the questions growing out of it, his administration 
would have passed into history as one of the most suc- 
cessful in our national life." 

John Sherman, who was a member of the House of 
Representatives in President Pierce's administration, 
and was appointed upon a committee to investigate 
affairs in Kansas, in his biography says: "Political oppo- 
nents were enemies at that time, who did not always do 
each other justice"; that since that time he had changed 
his opinions of many of the prominent men of that day 
and especially of President Pierce. "That he was a genial, 



27 

social and agreeable companion is affirmed by all who 
were familiar with him. That his opinions were honestly 
entertained and firmly supported is shown by his ad- 
herence to them without a change or shadow of turning. 
In this respect he compares favorably with many leading 
men of his party. He had been a general of distinction 
in the Mexican War and a member of both the Senate 
and House of Representatives. He was a leading lawyer 
in his state. His messages to Congress, considered from 
a literary view, were able state papers, clearly and 
strongly expressed. It was his great misfortune to have 
to deal with a controversy that he did not commence 
but he did not shrink from the responsibility." 

Mr. Chairman of the Pierce Statue Committee, I 
accept this statue from your hands, erected by the people 
of the state of New Hampshire to one of its most dis- 
tinguished sons, who was always "a gentleman and a 
man of courage," who believed that constitutional guar- 
anties should be lived up to, and to whose worth the state 
of New Hampshire has erected this statue, and of whom 
in 1863 during the time of our Civil War when most 
men's motives were impugned, Hawthorne, that man of 
such fine honor that he called forth the truest attach- 
ments and noblest friendships, said: 

"Only this let me say, that with the record of your life in 
my memory and with a sense of your character in my deeper 
consciousness as among the few things that time has left as it 
found them, I need no assurance that you continue faithful 
to that grand idea of an irrevocable nation which as you once 
told me was the earliest that your brave father taught you. 
For other men there may be a choice of paths — for you, but 
one; and it rests among my certainties that no man's loyalty is 
more steadfast, no man's hope or apprehensions on behalf of 
our national existence more deeply heartfelt or more closely 
intertwined with his possibilities of personal happiness than 
those of Franklin Pierce." 



28 



Mr. Carr, Introducing Judge Aldrich: 

His own people, here in New Hampshire, perhaps best 
knew Franklin Pierce, not as a general, a congressman, 
a United States senator, or as president even, but in the 
active practice of his profession as a lawyer. He 
knew thousands of men by name, and charmed all by 
the ease and democracy of his manner and speech, and 
his large-heartedness. In this field, in his time, as a 
trial lawyer, he was supreme. 

It is fitting and gracious that an eminent judge of 
the United States Court, a lawyer all his life, should 
have aided much with counsel and advice in the erec- 
tion of this statue of Franklin Pierce. 

We may be assured that he will hold the balance 
with an even hand, and aim to make his estimate as 
able, fair and just, as are his own decisions. That is 
what Franklin Pierce would ask. 

I present Hon. Edgar Aldrich. 



JUDGE ALDRICH'S ADDRESS. 

T^RANKLIN PIERCE was a New Hampshire man, 
A and he achieved the Presidency. 

While official responsibilities came to him early in 
life, it soon developed that there was in his nature a rare 
quality which made him shrink from them rather than 
seek them. 

The first paragraph of his inaugural address reflects 
the charm of his sentiment in respect to private life and 
official station. These were his words: 

"It is a relief to feel that no heart but my own can know 
the personal regret and bitter sorrow over which I have been 
borne to a position so suitable for others rather than desir- 
able for myself." 




HONORABLE EDGAR ALDRICH 



29 

The way official responsibility came to him and the 
way he laid it aside, to the end that he might pursue the 
peaceful callings of his profession in his beloved state 
and among neighbors whom he cherished, abundantly 
demonstrate that he valued private and peaceful pur- 
suits above the glory of official position. 

Mr. Blaine, in describing Franklin Pierce, says that he 
presented a rare combination of the qualities which 
attach friends and win popular support; that he was 
remarkably attractive in personal appearance, prepos- 
sessing in manner, ready and even eloquent as a public 
speaker, fluent and graceful in conversation, and when 
still a young man that he was preferred to all the other 
prominent statesmen of his party as a Presidential 
candidate. 

Franklin Pierce was descended from a patriotic and 
worthy ancestry, an ancestry which followed the lead of 
Washington and sturdily helped in the work which 
created the Union and established the greatest among 
the governments of the world. 

Franklin Pierce was the product of New Hampshire 
soil. The blood which gave force and energy to his chiv- 
alrous life was the blood of New Hampshire, and his 
qualities were such that they attained for him the chief 
magistracy of the nation, and it is highly appropriate 
that New Hampshire should erect a suitable memorial 
to his great achievements and his picturesque life. 

Franklin Pierce's life covered prominent relations 
with the state government, the period of the Mexican 
War, the period of the great and much discussed com- 
promises, a term as President of the United States, the 
years of the momentous slavery discussions, the days 
in which occurred the shock of arms which disturbed 
the foundations of the government itself, and his 
status in history is such as not only to justify but to 



30 

demand permanent and suitable recognition by his 
native state. 

This statue is not erected to Franklin Pierce because 
all agreed in the political views which he held upon the 
great questions of the period to which he belonged. 
It is erected to the memory of a New Hampshire man of 
high and notable accomplishments. Therefore it is not 
necessary to indulge in arguments in respect to his 
attitude toward the highly irritating public questions of 
his time other than to say that it must be conceded 
and that it ought to be conceded, that conditions in the 
years preceding the Civil War were such that patriotic 
men might honestly differ as to the surest way to save 
the Union. We who held the one opinion as to how the 
Union could be saved and slavery abolished yield nothing 
in patriotism or honor by conceding this. It would be 
uncandid to say that arguments were not then in the 
balance, or that forces were not then in the balance. 
The sentiment of the North was so divided that even 
those who held the view which ultimately triumphed 
through force of arms were in doubt as to what ought 
to be done, and as to what could be done to save the 
Union. 

Many forms of compromise and concession were sug- 
gested. 

In illustration of the doubt and the uncertainty exist- 
ing in that period, it is only necessary to refer to the 
incident of the Conciliatory Committee of Thirty- 
three, created by the National House of Representa- 
tives in the winter of 1860-61, when dark clouds were 
resting heavily upon a distracted nation. 

In extreme anxiety to conciliate the South, to save 
the Union and to avoid war, Charles Francis Adams, 
of Massachusetts, proposed that the Constitution be so 
amended that no subsequent amendment "having for 



31 

its object any interference with slavery shall originate 
with any state that does not recognize that relation 
within its own limits, or shall be valid without the 
assent of every ' one of the states composing the 
Union." 

This measure was more extreme and far-reaching than 
any ever suggested by a southern man, and, as will 
readily be appreciated, would have made the institu- 
tion of slavery constitutionally perpetual. This com- 
mittee of thirty-three was composed of prominent men 
from the North and South, and Mr. Adams' proposition 
was reported by a large majority, only two joining in a 
minority report with a proposed substitute. It is said 
that the proposed substitute was drawn by Daniel 
Clark, then a senator from New Hampshire. The house 
minority report was signed only by Cadwallader C. 
Washburn of Wisconsin and Mason W. Tappan of New 
Hampshire. Thus we see how dangerously near we 
came in that day of emergency, in order that the Union 
might be saved and war averted, to a unanimous propo- 
sition which would have perpetuated slavery. 

When reflecting upon results which might have 
followed a unanimous report, it is well for us to note that 
two of the three dissentients were New Hampshire men. 

When the measure proposed by Mr. Adams came up 
for discussion in the House of Congress, Mr. Corwin of 
Ohio moved a substitute, which changed its substance 
very little, and this measure, which was numbered the 
thirteenth amendment to the Federal Constitution, and 
one which Mr. Blaine declares would have made slavery 
perpetual in the United States, so far as any influence or 
power of the National Government could affect it, was 
adopted by a vote of 133 to 65. Among those who 
supported the resolution in the National House, as one 
best calculated to save the Union, were John Sherman of 



32 

Ohio, Charles Francis Adams of Massachusetts, Howard 
of Michigan, Windom of Minnesota, and Morehead and 
McPherson of Pennsylvania. The proposition was 
adopted in the Senate by a vote of 24 to 12. Among 
those voting in the affirmative were Anthony of Rhode 
Island, Baker of Oregon, Dixon and Foster of Connec- 
ticut, Grimes and Harlan of Iowa, Morrill of Maine, 
and Ten Eyck of New Jersey; — Seward of New York, 
Fessenden of Maine, and Collamer of Vermont not 
voting. 

Before action could be had in the states, develop- 
ments were such as to render efforts in the direction of 
reconciliation fruitless, and the idea of a vigorous prose- 
cution of a war for the preservation of the Union became 
dominant and controlling. 

This historical incident is not referred to for the pur- 
pose of commending, or excusing, particular men or 
measures, but as illustrating the thought, now univer- 
sally recognized, that the questions at issue in the United 
States, preceding the Civil War, were of such a charac- 
ter that men of strength and patriotism might honestly 
disagree. 

We must not be too swift in becoming the dictators 
or the arbiters of the thoughts and the principles of 
others. We ought and must accord to them the right 
to hold their own responsibilities and to be the keepers 
of their own consciences in respect to their duties to their 
country and to their God. 

It is not a law of human nature that strong men, how- 
ever honest, shall always agree about the best way of 
establishing and maintaining a beneficent and lasting gov- 
ernment. Indeed, men are so prone to disagreements 
that even the fundamental propositions for creating this 
government of ours were only saved from wreck by the 
weight of a hair thrown into the Constitutional Con- 



33 

vention in the spirit of conciliation and delicate diplo- 
macy. 

It is to do honor to a New Hampshire man that we 
erect this statue. While we of the one way of thinking 
might well differ with some of the leading thoughts and 
expressions of Franklin Pierce, during the crisis which 
was to determine whether the nation should longer exist 
or perish from the earth, we do not doubt his patriotism 
or his loyalty, and we question not the honesty of his 
convictions. 

The chief consideration which led me to take part in 
these exercises was to put in enduring form the sturdy 
expressions of a great New Hampshire man, who served 
his country in Congress during the winters, and in the 
field as a general during the summer campaigns of the 
Civil War. I refer to General Gilman Marston. In a 
conversation while walking from the dedication of the 
Webster statue in front of the State House, he abruptly 
stopped near the very spot where the statue stands to- 
day unveiled and said to me, "There is one more thing 
that New Hampshire ought to do. New Hampshire ought 
to erect a statue to Franklin Pierce, her only President. 
It should not be done by private contribution. It should 
be done under state authority. I knew Franklin Pierce 
well. He was a great lawyer, and a gentleman of rare 
accomplishments. He was the prince of good fellowship 
and a man of undoubted patriotism. Beyond all ques- 
tion he honestly believed that the Union would be de- 
stroyed if we went to war about it; and I believed that 
it would be destroyed if we didn't go to war about it. 
He was as honest and sincere in his convictions as I was 
in mine, and I want to say to you, right here, that if the 
South had had a little more money and a few more men, 
Franklin Pierce would have been right and I should have 
been wrong." 



34 

In that crucial period when men differed, Franklin 
Pierce may have misjudged as to the surest way of sav- 
ing the Union, but it must be true that Hawthorne, who 
understood the depths of his generous and graceful man- 
hood better perhaps than any other, in explaining to 
General Pierce the conviction which led him to dedicate 
the "Old Home" notes as a tender and lasting monu- 
ment to his memory, and using the words just quoted 
by His Excellency, Governor Felker, so expressive of 
confidence and affection, touched the real soul of the 
man he knew. 

The idea of a memorial does not rest upon partisan 
grounds, or upon partisan accomplishments, or, indeed, 
upon the abstract question of one's being always exactly 
right upon all of the questions of his day. England puts 
into her library of the House of Lords a bust of Crom- 
well, not because he was always politically right accord- 
ing to English standards, but because he was a great 
Englishman and a man of notable achievements. 

It is not appropriate on this occasion to discuss the 
great question as to which was the best way to save the 
Union. The war came. It involved a strife among 
brothers of one country, and we must at this late day 
accord to each and all the honor of having struggled for 
what, to them, seemed to be the right. The Union was 
preserved; national authority was permanently estab- 
lished ; and we are under one flag, respected at home, and 
everywhere throughout the earth; and it is a happy 
fruition that all, now, agree that the preservation of the 
Union was necessary, to the end that we should become 
a great nation, and, above all, that it was best for the 
men of the South, as well as for the men of the North. 



35 



Mr. Carr, Introducing Ex-Senator Chandler. 

^ Virile from crown of head to sole of foot; virile from 
birth to the present live waking moment, the next 
speaker, as you will all agree, is in spirit and fertility 
the youngest man in the party. Big enough correctly 
to estimate a political adversary, large hearted enough 
ever to have in mind the Master's mandate as to his 
enemies and friends, he loves us all, even though he 
sometimes flays us. 

In season and out of season, facing the anger and op- 
position and criticism of his political associates, he long 
ago determined the state should do justice to the mem- 
ory of Franklin Pierce. 

By his work mainly has been restored the birthplace 
of Daniel Webster. His persistence has largely con- 
tributed to the memorial we finish to-day. And these 
are but two of the things, perhaps among the least of 
his accomplishments, for which New Hampshire will 
honor and love him. 

He has seen more and will tell us more of the motives 
and personality of President Pierce than we know. 

We welcome to-day, this distinguished son of New 
Hampshire, who has represented her ably and always 
actively in so many fields, whose ability we all admire; 
whose fame is nation wide, and whose patriotism none 
may question — 

The Honorable William E. Chandler. 



36 



ADDRESS BY EX-SENATOR CHANDLER. 

FT WOULD be impossible for me on this occasion — the 
* dedication of a statue in the State House yard at 
Concord of President Franklin Pierce — to deal critically 
with his character and career, or to fail to speak of him 
in words of deep tenderness, for the simple reason that 
to me as a boy he was kind and helpful and drew me to 
his heart with irresistible affection. He was a friend of 
my father and during the presidential campaign of 1852 
when I was seventeen years old, he came to my bedside 
in my home on Centre Street in Concord, where I was 
sick with fever, and spoke to me cheering words. I was 
studying law with John H. George and Sidney Webster 
(George & Webster) and after the canvass opened we 
moved over to the law office of General Pierce and his 
partner Josiah Minot where I worked for General Pierce 
in collecting the fees to which he was entitled alone for 
cases tried by him outside of Merrimack County where 
Mr. Minot was an equal partner with him. I took 
great interest in this collection. His fees were ordinarily 
from five dollars to ten dollars per day and expenses out- 
side of Concord! Prior to his going to Washington on 
March 4, 1853, I think I had managed to collect about 
five hundred dollars, and my expenses for collection 
were about fifty dollars. There was one charge of 
five hundred dollars which I became exceedingly desirous 
of collecting through James Bell (later, in 1855, elected 
United States senator) who was the senior counsel for 
the Winnipesaukee Lake Cotton and Woolen Manu- 
facturing Company in a flowage case which had been 
tried for several weeks. General Pierce gave me a care- 
fully worded letter which I took to Mr. Bell but came 
home without the money! The claim was, I believe, 




HONORABLE WILLIAM E CHANDLER 



37 

settled with some deduction before the President went 
to Washington. 

In the spring of 1855 I was in Washington with my 
friend Isaac Andrew Hill, and Judge Minot took us to 
the White House up the back stairs where we saw the 
President and his Secretary, Mr. Sidney Webster, and 
were invited to tea, on which occasion there were present 
only the two Concord boys and an old-fashioned Western 
gentleman of dignity and politeness. The President 
goodnaturedly reproached Mr. Hill (whose father, Isaac 
Hill, had been a Jackson democrat and a United States 
senator), for leaving the Democratic party and becoming 
a Know Nothing and a free soiler; but he did not com- 
plain of me for being a Whig boy from whom he could 
expect nothing. The W T hite House had been a lonely 
home by reason of the sudden death by a railroad 
accident of the boy son, Benjamin Pierce, on January 6, 
1853, after his father's election, but before his inaugura- 
tion. 

With all these kindnesses from the President I could 
never have failed to love him and it has always remained 
certain that the boy he loved and helped would 

Be to his virtues very kind 
Be to his faults a little blind. 

So as time passed I came to praise him for his goodness 
and greatness. 

To the Grafton and Coos Bar Association, at Plymouth 
on January 6, 1888, I said of him from personal knowl- 
edge: 

All my own observation of this brilliant advocate was 
while I was a law student under seventeen years of age; but 
I could even then appreciate the fact and am able now con- 
fidently to say, that very few American lawyers have equalled 
him in ingenuity, tact, grace, eloquence and power before a 



38 

jury ; nor should his ability and success as a jury lawyer obscure 
the further truth, that, while not a learned lawyer, he had one 
of the clearest of legal minds, and an unsurpassed faculty of 
stating and arguing legal principles. I think a stronger im- 
pression was made upon my youthful mind by the arguments 
which I heard him make on legal questions, than by his conduct 
of jury cases. As a many sided lawyer, capable of conducting 
trials of all kinds, it seems to me that he stood facile princeps 
at the New Hampshire bar, not even yielding the palm to the 
massive and erudite, but eccentric, Ira Perley. 

Further I said on that occasion: 

The fact that Franklin Pierce became President of the 
United States should lead the people of his native state, 
without forgetting his mistakes, and without distinction of 
party, to do to him, in some appropriate method, signal honor. 
On the first Wednesday in June, 1845, Franklin Pierce and 
John P. Hale held that memorable debate in the North 
Church in Concord, which was the actual initiative in New 
Hampshire of the great political anti-slavery contest, the 
basis of which made the political issues of the state and the 
country for the forty years which followed, which had such 
a controlling influence upon the personal fortunes of both 
these distinguished and eloquent men, and which, as to 
some of its incidents and outgrowths, has not yet come to 
an end. 

The heroic statue of Daniel Webster, whom New Hamp- 
shire proudly gave to be the great forensic defender of the 
Union and the Constitution and who, in spite of his political 
and personal shortcomings, was the greatest intellect that 
America has yet produced, fitly stands, the gift of a liberal 
private citizen, in front of the capitol at Concord. To the 
right and to the left of this massive memorial I hope to live 
to see erected similar statues of Franklin Pierce, given by New 
Hampshire to be president of our republic, and John P. 
Hale, the first distinctive anti-slavery United States senator 
and New Hampshire's noblest champion in the cause of human 
freedom. 



39 

At an Old Home Day Celebration in Concord on 
August 24, 19 14, I also publicly recorded my opinion of 
President Pierce and my belief that the people of his 
native state, without forgetting his mistakes and with- 
out distinction of party, should do him signal honor by 
erecting his statue in the State House yard. 

The statue of John P. Hale having been placed in the 
State House yard on August 13, 1892, once more I 
ventured to speak in favor of the erection of a statue of 
President Pierce, at a Republican State Convention of 
September 17, 1908. I introduced and urged this 
resolution: 

Resolved, That the Republican State Convention desires 
that the next legislature provide for the erection in the State 
House yard at Concord of a statue of Franklin Pierce, a 
native and distinguished citizen of New Hampshire, an able 
lawyer, an eloquent orator, a general in the national army, a 
representative in congress, a United States senator and a 
President of the United States; and the convention expresses 
the hope that this movement for the erection of such a me- 
morial statue will receive the approval and support of all our 
citizens without regard to party distinctions. 

Unwise opposition arose and the report says: 

Mr. Chandler obtained the floor and stated that he would 
be unwilling to have the resolution passed by the conven- 
tion unless by substantially a unanimous vote and therefore 
that he withdrew the same. 

On March 4, 191 3 — Woodrow Wilson's day — I made 
my last appeal for the statue, this time to the Democratic 
legislature of 191 3, saying: 

If the Democrats will all advocate it, enough Republicans 
will vote for it to make its erection sure. 

All opposition from Republicans should cease. As people 



4 o 

grow old they need not change their opinions, but they ought 
to moderate their animosities and recognize the good that is 
in all men. 

General Pierce in his relations with those he loved and 
those who loved him was one of the gentlest and most joyous 
of men ; and of the twelve Presidents whom I have known and 
talked pleasantly with in the White House he came very near 
to being the most gracious. 

Equally with Lewis Cass and Daniel Webster, Franklin 
Pierce is entitled to have harsh judgments of anti-slavery men 
moderated, as time passes, through a recognition of the sin- 
cerity of their fears of a dissolution of the Union in connection 
with controversies concerning slavery. 

The strength of this plea in their behalf has been felici- 
tously shown by Mr. Blaine and distinctly by me as appears 
in a memorandum published by me in 1908. I earnestly 
hope that every citizen of New Hampshire will in the era 
of the present day given his voice in favor of a statue, erected 
by the state of New Hampshire and not by any individual, 
of President Franklin Pierce. 

It was most gratifying to me and creditable to the 
people of New Hampshire that without any further mani- 
festation of party animosity the legislature on May 13, 
19 13, passed a law directing the Governor and Council to 
erect the statue and making an appropriation therefor; 
and the result of this commendable action stands before 
us in the graceful statue of Franklin Pierce to-day un- 
veiled. We are now here, citizens of both politics, to 
give to the President's memory the praise and honor 
which is implied in the existence of the memorial. 

On four official occasions it has been my duty to deal 
with the questions of the judgments which should be 
dealt out to what were called the pro-slavery statesmen 
of the ante- war period. 

The first was on the reception by the Congress of a 
statue of Lewis Cass from the state of Michigan on 



4i 

February 1 8 and 21, 1889; the second on the reception 
by Congress of a statue of Daniel Webster (with one of 
John Stark) from the state of New Hampshire, on 
December 20, 1894; the third on the unveiling of a 
statue of Mr. Webster in Washington presented to the 
United States by Stilson Hutchins on January 18, 1900; 
and the fourth on the celebration of the restoration of 
the Birthplace House of Mr. Webster at Franklin, New 
Hampshire, on August 28, 1913. 

It will be an honor to me whenever a citizen of my 
native state, which has so much honored me, will read 
the words of praise which I am able to give to these 
distinguished men who gave renown to the state of their 
nativity down to and including the last, whose statue we 
now unveil — too long delayed in its erection. 

In considering the question there is no wisdom in 
ignoring the reasons for the delay which has taken place. 
They are President Pierce's relations to the subject of 
slavery. He was a pro-slavery president and therefore 
must have no statue— it is said. At the end of fifty 
years after slavery has been blotted out of existence this 
reason should be disregarded. 

The same objection could be made to statues of two 
other sons of New Hampshire— Lewis Cass and Daniel 
Webster; yet the statue of Cass, given by the Republican 
state of Michigan to the national gallery, was received 
by congress with eulogies participated in by the New 
Hampshire delegation, and the statue of Webster was 
gvien by New Hampshire to that gallery with appropriate 
ceremonies, and a like statue of Webster was given 
to the state by a private citizen, was received by 
the commonwealth and placed conspicuously in the 
State House yard and now stands there in company with 
the statues of John Stark and John P. Hale. On none 
of these occasions was there any attempt to avoid con- 



42 

sideration of the hostility which had existed against 
both Cass and Webster; both had been denounced with 
extreme bitterness, the one as always a pro-slavery man, 
the other as having wholly forsaken the anti-slavery 
cause. You all know the animosities aroused in those 
days. But they did not continue to prevail against Cass 
and Webster. They ought not longer to prevail against 
Pierce. The real reason why we should not at this late 
day longer refrain from erecting statues to such men is 
that their hesitancy to make efforts for the abolition of 
slavery, their willingness to make compromises in behalf 
of slavery, arose from their deep devotion to the union of 
these states which it was believed would be endangered if 
controversy over slavery continued. Bear in mind that 
these men were nearer to the days of the formation of the 
constitution than we now are after more than one hun- 
dred years of national life have passed, and the Union 
has been cemented and strengthened as the result of 
bloody war. They felt during the first half of the nine- 
teenth century that the Union, although a very sacred 
bond, might easily be broken into numerous discordant 
single states if the love of the Union was not cherished 
in the hearts of all men and sacrifices made for its preser- 
vation. Upon this point Mr. Blaine shows the reasons 
why the utmost allowance should be made for these 
great men of New Hampshire who were in favor of yield- 
ing much to slavery in order to save the Union and who, 
although they were mistaken in their conclusions, are 
still entitled to be remembered and honored as honest and 
sincere in their public opinions and patriotic in their 
national conduct. 

mr. blaine's explanation of mr. Webster's action. 

Mr. Blaine in his "Twenty Years of Congress" (Vol. I, 
page 93) attributes Mr. Webster's pro-slavery action to 
sincere sentiments of patriotism. He says: 



43 

"He belonged with those who could remember the first 
president, who personally knew much of the hardships and 
sorrows of the Revolutionary period, who were born to poverty 
and reared to privation. To these the formation of the federal 
government had come as a gift from Heaven and they had 
heard from the lips of the living Washington his farewell 
words that ' the Union is the edifice of our real independence, 
the support of our tranquillity at home, our peace abroad, our 
prosperity, our safety and of the very liberty which we so 
highly prize; that for this Union we should cherish a cordial, 
habitual, immovable attachment, and should discountenance 
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event 
be abandoned.' 

"Mr. Webster had in his own lifetime seen the thirteen col- 
onies grow to thirty powerful states. He had seen three 
millions of people, enfeebled and impoverished by a long 
struggle, increased eightfold in number, surrounded by all the 
comforts, charms and securities of life. All this spoke to him 
of the Union and of its priceless blessings. He now heard its 
advantages discussed, its perpetuity doubted, its existence 
threatened. 

"A convention of slaveholding states had been called to 
meet at Nashville for the purpose of considering the possible 
separation of the sections. Mr. Webster felt that a genera- 
tion had been born who were undervaluing their inheritance 
and who might by temerity destroy it. Under motives 
imposed by these surroundings, he spoke for the preservation 
of the Union. He believed it to be seriously endangered. 
His apprehensions were ridiculed by many who ten years after 
Mr. Webster was in his grave saw for the first time how real 
and how terrible were the perils upon which those apprehen- 
sions were founded. . . . The thoughtful reconsideration 
of his severest critics must allow that Mr. Webster saw before 
him a divided duty, and that he chose the part which in his 
patriotic judgment was demanded by the supreme danger 
of the hour." 

But while accepting as just, and reiterating as I have 



44 

on the occasions referred to, this vindication by Mr. 
Blaine of the "Union savers" who were unkindly re- 
proached in their day of debate, it is necessary for me 
to avow that it is easier for me to do this in behalf of the 
advocates of the compromise measures of 1850 than in 
behalf of the statesmen who four years later devised and 
carried to a passage through Congress the repeal of the 
Missouri Compromise. 

This repeal was utterly indefensible, even although 
sustained by the unjust and unfortunate Dred Scott 
decision, and remains a wrongful act of the American 
Congress, which was fraught with distressing conse- 
quences. Yet, even here, because their public action 
was, as much as Mr. Webster's, based upon an "honest 
motive" Stephen A. Douglas and Franklin Pierce are to 
be acquitted of unforgivable public acts and are to be 
praised and honored for their careers as a whole of states- 
manship and patriotism. 

Therefore, now so it is, that in my declining years, I 
find myself unable to harshly criticize and condemn any 
of the leaders of the first ninety years of American In- 
dependence, or to withhold from any of them, by reason 
of such faults and mistakes as may be developed in 
any career of prominence, the praises that are due to 
them for any wise and noble and patriotic deeds. 

Those of President Pierce were narrated down to 1852 
by his Bowdoin College associate and constant friend, 
Nathaniel Hawthorne, in a most attractive and felicitous 
campaign biography in that year, and were fully re- 
corded in 1888 in Appleton's "Cyclopaedia of American 
Biography" by one who had been a United States senator 
from New Hampshire — Bainbridge Wadleigh, a Republi- 
can, in a fair and accurate recital. 

Franklin Pierce was a scholar of superior knowledge, an 
orator of captivating eloquence, a lawyer of acute learn- 



45 

ing, a trial advocate of unsurpassed skill and force, a 
brave soldier on the battlefield of his country, a public 
official of ability and fidelity, and a President of conscien- 
tiousness and patriotism, whose statue in this State 
House yard is fittingly the companion of that of the 
soldier John Stark and of those of the statesmen Daniel 
Webster and John P. Hale. Before future generations 
there will continue to stand here this testimonial to 
President Pierce from all the people of his state asserting 
his high character, his splendid achievements and the 
noble traits which made him admired and beloved by his 
countrymen. 



Mr. Carr, Introducing Mr. Branch: 

Since the formation of our government, American 
democracy has been on trial. It is to-day. "The basis 
of a true democracy is moral sovereignty." Experience 
and the beacon lights of history guide us dimly in our 
struggle, and patriotism and righteousness alone can 
guard our way. 

Some phases of the part played in the struggle by him 
whom we honor on this occasion will be estimated by 
one of our best students of history, a scholar, lawyer, 
and a lover of true American democracy, Honorable 
Oliver E. Branch, who will address us on Franklin 
Pierce and the War for the Union. 



4 6 



ORATION OF MR. BRANCH. 

\f OUR Excellency, Mr. President, Ladies and Gentle- 
■*■ men: 
At the last session of the legislature the following 
joint resolution was adopted: 

Resolved, by the Senate and House of Representives in 
General Court convened: That the governor and council 
are hereby directed to cause a statue to Franklin Pierce to 
be erected in an appropriate place, to be by them selected 
in the state house yard, the material, design, workmanship 
and dedication to be left to the governor and council, and 
that to meet the expense thereof the governor be authorized 
to draw his warrant upon the treasury for a sum not exceed- 
ing $15,000. 

The passage of this resolution was the gratifying cul- 
mination of an effort extending over several years on the 
part of a large number of our citizens without distinction 
of political parties, to obtain for Mr. Pierce permanent 
public recognition of his distinguished services, character 
and career. In the performance of the duty thus imposed 
upon the governor and council they have been aided by 
the advice and practical suggestions of several gentle- 
men, some of whom were personally acquainted with Mr. 
Pierce, and who, notwithstanding the fierce criticism to 
which he was subjected in his long public life for his atti- 
tude on the problems connected with the anti-slavery 
agitation and the war for the Union, believe in the hon- 
esty of his convictions, his patriotism, and his loyalty 
to his country. 

Not long ago the commons of England caused to be 
erected outside the walls and within the yard of West- 
minster Hall an heroic statue of Oliver Cromwell, and 
this notwithstanding Cromwell is still regarded by many 



47 

English people with absolute aversion and as a veritable 
man of sin. " Nevertheless, the people of England were 
broad-minded enough to recognize the great services 
Cromwell rendered the cause of constitutional govern- 
ment, and the high place he merits in the pantheon of 
English history; and there his statue stands within sight 
of Temple Bar, where for years after the restoration his 
body hung in chains, a monument to his extraordinary 
career and a witness to the fine tolerance of the English 
people. So, too, this monument which the people of 
New Hampshire have caused to-day to be erected will 
stand as a witness to their liberal spirit, and a memorial 
to the high accomplishments of Franklin Pierce. 

Fifty-three years have passed since the events occurred 
in which Mr. Pierce bore a conspicuous part. Thousands 
who were then unborn, now are voters. The restless 
boys who then filled the benches of the schoolhouses, 
who were stirred with a strange excitement when they 
heard of Sumter, and saw volunteers marching through 
quiet towns and villages, thronging the railway stations 
and departing amid shouts and cheers and tearful good- 
byes for the camp and field, to-day are men "on whose 
faces shines the light of life's declining sun." The long 
line of illustrious men who, in the cabinet and legislature, 
in army and navy, conducted the nation through the 
struggle have to a large extent "gone over to the 
majority," and the broken regiments of scarred vet- 
erans who came home with torn and tattered battle 
flags have become decimated in the conflict that sounds 
no truce. 

Thronging through the cloud-rift, whose are they, the faces 
Faint revealed yet sure divined, the famous ones of old? 

"What" — they smile — "our names, our deeds so soon erases 
Time upon his tablet where Life's glory lies enrolled? 



4 8 

"Was it for mere fool's-play, make-believe and mumming, 
So we battled it like men, not boylike sulked and whined? 

Each of us heard clang God's 'Come!' and each was coming; 
Soldiers all, to forward-face, not sneaks to lag behind!" 

Since then we have become substantially a new people 
with a better understanding of the causes of the war and 
of the events that led up to the great rebellion than many 
who witnessed its dramatic beginning. How strange it 
seems to us that human slavery once existed as a recog- 
nized protected institution in a large portion of this land! 
It is as unreal to us as the fact that King George's statue 
once stood in Bowling Green, and that royal governors 
from England ruled over what now are sovereign states. 
How like a dream it seems to those now in the decline of 
life that for four weary years the resources and the 
energies of the two great sections of the country were 
marshalled in a desperate struggle for supremacy! 

Now the war was not a conflict that was desired or 
even encouraged, at the outset, by the masses, North or 
South. It may be doubted whether the party leaders at 
that time really anticipated that a great civil war would 
be the final result of the mighty political struggle which 
had been going on for more than half a century. The 
people were happy, united by sympathy and community 
interest, national pride and national glory. There was 
no general prevailing sentiment that slavery was inher- 
ently wrong and should be destroyed, for it was an 
institution that the fathers found here, that had existed 
before the foundations of the government were laid, 
which was protected by the Federal Constitution and 
the decisions of the supreme court, an institution which 
had flourished in Massachusetts as well as in Virginia, 
and which had died out of the northern states through 
economic rather than humane causes. To the southern 
people born, reared and educated under its shadow, it 




HONORABLE OLIVER E. BRANCH 
Orator of the Day 



49 

appeared not only right but natural and necessary, and 
absolutely indispensable to their industrial and com- 
mercial existence, while New England believed that her 
primacy in cotton manufactures would be destroyed 
without slave labor in the cotton fields of the South. 

When the Federal Constitution was framed and 
adopted, slavery was of necessity recognized as an 
ineluctable part of the social and political system, which 
must be so regarded, and consequently allowed and pro- 
tected. The Federal Union could not be created without 
the concurrence of the southern states, nor the Federal 
Constitution adopted without their votes, and to have 
proposed and insisted at that critical time, even had there 
been any great sentiment in favor of it, that slavery 
could be abolished, would have been equivalent to saying 
that there should be no Federal Union and Constitution. 

And so, upon the quicksands of slavery was built the 
majestic temple of liberty. Such a condition of things 
was, of course, an anomaly. Here was a people that 
proposed a new era in government. They announced as 
the foundation principles of that government, the largest 
freedom to all, consistent with the rights of all, and that 
"all men are endowed by their Creator with the inalien- 
able rights of liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
And yet, that people, actuated by the purest motives and 
the highest patriotism, and proclaiming a code of politi- 
cal principles, as luminous as a star, were by an over- 
mastering necessity, compelled at the very outset of their 
career, to violate and affront those principles when put 
into practical operation, by preserving and fostering 
under their organic law an institution as dark as "Erebus 
and Old Night." Could such a condition of things long 
endure? Could abstract right and active wrong be made 
to work in harmony? Such a thing was opposed to the 
very spirit and genius of the government, to natural 



50 

justice and to the eternal decrees of God. It bore the 
seeds of its own destruction within itself. "The irre- 
pressible conflict" could not be postponed, and it came. 
There was one capital defect in the Federal Constitu- 
tion. It left the question in dispute whether the states 
constituted a nation, an indissoluble union of indestruct- 
ible states, or a mere confederation of absolutely inde- 
pendent states, which had reserved to themselves the 
same choice and power to withdraw from the Union when 
in their judgment they saw fit, as they had to join it in 
the beginning. The former is the true theory, said the 
North ; the latter is the true theory, said the South. Nor 
was the South alone in her interpretation of the nature of 
the Union. It prevailed to a large extent in the North 
among Democrats, Whigs, Republicans and Abolitionists. 
It was a question of constitutional law which neither 
Webster nor Calhoun could decide, but so long as an hon- 
est difference of opinion was possible, so long the stabil- 
ity of the government and the permanence of the Union 
were imperiled. 

The immediate cause of the war was the result of these 
opposing theories respecting the structure of the Union, 
which on the part of the South had been forced into 
growing importance by the anti-slavery agitation and 
the increasing conviction in the minds of conservative 
men of all parties that slavery should be confined to the 
states in which it then existed. Its subsequent cause 
was the necessity which compelled the government as a 
war measure to strike at the institution of slavery and 
through its destruction at the rebellion itself. 

It is not always considered, in the discussion of the 
issues that agitated the country during the presidency 
of Mr. Pierce and Mr. Buchanan, that for the most part 
they involved great questions of law upon which the 
ablest lawyers of the country might, and did honestly 



5i 

differ, but which, as the struggle progressed and civil war 
became imminent, following the election of Abraham 
Lincoln to the Presidency, forced to the front the ques- 
tion of the destruction of slavery. 

Naturally, Mr. Pierce's point of view in regard to these 
great questions was that of the trained constitutional 
lawyer, who believed that the safety and perpetuity of 
the Union absolutely depended upon a strict adherence 
to the Federal Constitution, and the decisions of the 
supreme court in cases where those laws were involved, 
and that if the restraints of the Constitution and of the 
courts upon the powers of Congress were destroyed, the 
destruction of the Union would be the unescapable con- 
sequence and result. 

It was, therefore, inevitable that in the midst of the 
passions excited by the progress of the war, and espe- 
cially by the issuance of the emancipation proclamation, 
Mr. Pierce's loyalty to the Union was seriously ques- 
tioned, but I think it is beyond doubt that during this 
period he was sincerely concerned over the threatened 
dismemberment of the Union, and felt that in comparison 
with this menace the question of the destruction or the 
continuance of slavery was of secondary concern; and 
thus it was that when the slavery question had come to 
be a moral issue and its destruction urged as a legitimate 
exercise of the war powers of the government that Mr. 
Pierce's position upon these matters was bitterly attacked 
and condemned in the North, especially in New Hamp- 
shire, and his loyalty to the Union openly challenged. 

There is another fact that is often lost sight of in con- 
sidering the causes that led to the great rebellion, and 
to the position which Mr. Pierce took in regard to them, 
and that is, that the Republican party came into power, 
not upon the issue of abolishing slavery, but instead, 
upon the issue of confining it to the states where it then 



52 

existed; and that the war was not undertaken by the 
government for the purpose of destroying slavery, but 
for the purpose of putting down the rebellion and pre- 
serving the Union. 

In his first inaugural address, Mr. Lincoln said: 

I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the 
institution of slavery in the states where it now exists. I 
believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclina- 
tion to do so. Those who nominated me and elected me did 
so with the full knowledge that I had made this and many 
similar declarations and had never recanted them. 

Again, he said in his letter to Horace Greeley, in 
August, 1862, — 

I would save the Union. I would save it in the shortest 
way under the Constitution. The sooner the national author- 
ity can be restored, the nearer the Union will be "the Union 
as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time save slavery, I do not agree 
with them. If there be those who would not save the Union 
unless they could at the same time destroy slavery, I do not 
agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle 
is to save the Union, and it is not either to save or 
to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without 
freeing any slave I would do it. If I could save it by 
freeing all the slaves I would do it. If I could save it by 
freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that. 
What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because 
I believe it helps to save the Union. What I forbear, I for- 
bear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. 
I have so stated my purpose according to my view of official 
duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed per- 
sonal wish that all men everywhere could be free. 

This letter of Mr. Lincoln immediately subjected 
him to a storm of condemnation, quite as violent as 
those to which Mr. Pierce had been subjected; but so 



53 

inflamed had public sentiment become in regard to 
slavery and putting down the rebellion, that all appeals 
for conservative action in dealing with them were with 
many regarded as little short of disloyalty. 

I think it is beyond question that before Mr. Lincoln 
assumed the duties of his office he was profoundly appre- 
hensive that the secession movement, which for the time 
seemed to have lost something of its momentum, fol- 
lowing the action of the seven states that had already 
passed secession ordinances, would be followed by the 
secession of other states upon the turning over of the 
government to the victorious Republican party, in which 
event nothing but war could stay the progress of the 
slave states in setting up a separate government in which 
their constitutional rights would find the protection 
which, it was insisted, they had not had under the 
Federal Union, and the way opened for the ultimate 
triumph of the secession cause. Herein we may find an 
explanation of the highly conciliatory tone of Mr. Lin- 
coln's first inaugural address, and in which he sought 
to allay the fears of the South that it was the intention 
of the Republican administration to interfere with slav- 
ery in the states where it then existed. But secession 
triumphant meant something more than a particular 
theory of the Union established; it meant slavery pre- 
served and extended by the power of a new empire of 
which it should be the cornerstone. Nevertheless, 
when the guns of Fort Moultrie opened on the "Star 
of the West," the challenge which was then made to the 
government and which the government accepted was 
simply whether there should be a Union or a Confed- 
eration, not whether there should be a Union with or 
without slavery. Well, that was something worth fight- 
ing for, yet it lacked on the side of the North, to some 
extent, the incentives which spring from a sense of 



54 

high conviction, which inspire popular enthusiasm and 
which, when they once seize upon a great people, make 
their armies invincible and their cause triumphant. 
Small wonder that between 1861 and 1863 patriotic 
men often said, "Are we not fighting for a principle which 
is purely academic? It is not after all simply a ques- 
tion of constitutional law, which the greatest lawyers 
of the country cannot decide, and which, though its 
solution affects the form of our government, is not abso- 
lutely necessary for our existence or our happiness? 
Well might men say, as they often did, when the news 
of defeat and loss upon loss came up from our armies, 
"Are we not paying too dearly for an experiment of 
government by the people? Is not the prophecy of 
Mr. Lincoln being fulfilled that 'should we go to war 
after great losses on both sides and nothing gained, the 
same questions will be forced upon us?"' 

It was not until the Emancipation Proclamation was 
issued, when the struggle for "the Union as it was" and 
"the Constitution as it was," became the struggle for 
"the Constitution as it is" and "the Union as it is," 
when the cause became one not of politics only, but of 
morals; not of governmental philosophy, but of human- 
ity; not of theoretical liberty, but of practical freedom; 
that the North and her armies caught the inspiration 
which swept them straight on to victory. The national 
conscience which had been paralyzed for a hundred 
years was suddenly quickened into life, and as if to 
atone in an hour for the sins of a century, the power of the 
government was hurled at the confederacy with the 
fury of retribution. The question of secession and 
slavery was decided beyond appeal, and for the first 
time in its history the nation became worthy of the 
exalted position it had so long and so falsely assumed. 

Mr. Pierce's professional and political career was 



55 

coincident with the most critical years in the history 
of the republic; years when the very life of the nation 
was at stake, when the threat of secession was heard in 
the North as well as in the South; years when the 
institution of slavery was defended in many a northern 
pulpit as something divinely ordered; years when the 
possibility of a disruption of the Federal Union was 
regarded with complacency and excited no general 
alarm, and when great issues that agitated the country 
involved questions of organic law instead of morals and 
the sentiments of patriotism. 

The situation prior to the actual opening of hostilities 
was most extraordinary. Truly, it was a time "that 
tried men's souls." Here was slavery firmly intrenched 
in sixteen states, protected and buttressed by the Fed- 
eral Constitution and the Federal statutes, and the 
decisions of the supreme court, and representing mil- 
lions of money invested in slaves and threatening seces- 
sion if their right to hold slaves was assailed. Here 
were the Abolitionists, demanding the immediate over- 
throw of the whole slavery system. Here were the 
great senators of the North, attacking in high debate 
the right of secession, and on the other hand, the South- 
ern senators passionately defending secession and pro- 
claiming the absolute right of states to order and direct 
their own domestic affairs without interference from 
the general government or the free states. Here was 
Mr. Lincoln, despairing of any agreement for composing 
the warring parties, proposing that slavery should be 
abolished by the payment of four billion dollars to the 
slave owners to compensate them for the deprivation of 
their property. Here was the Republican party pro- 
posing that slavery should not be abolished but confined 
to the states where it then existed; and on the other hand, 
here were the Douglas Democrats, proposing to let 



56 

the new states decide for themselves whether or not they 
would permit slavery. No wonder that the lines of care 
deepened on the sad face of Mr. Lincoln, when day after 
day the possibility of saving the Union grew more and 
more hopeless. Little wonder that patriotic men, amidst 
these warring and mutually extinctive factions knew 
not where the right lay nor where the path of duty led, 
and that they sometimes erred in judgment, especially 
when over all that wide welter of strife there hung the 
portentous clouds of civil war. 

There was one thing, which perhaps more than any 
other intensified public excitement over the anti-slavery 
issue and the secession movement, and that was the 
decision of the supreme court of the United States in the 
Dred Scott case, a decision which was long misrepre- 
sented and which caused the chief justice and the justices 
who concurred with him in the opinion to be unsparingly 
assailed and the honesty of their conclusions denied on 
hundreds of platforms and in thousands of newspapers 
and pamphlets throughout the North. The specific 
charge which was made against the opinion, and which 
roused the bitterest feeling, was that it decided that "a 
negro has no rights that a white man is bound to respect. " 
That this was an absolute perversion of what the court in 
fact decided is apparent upon the briefest examination, 
but the charge was made so persistently and so often that 
no denial of its truth was listened to, so tense had public 
feeling become in regard to slavery in the southern as 
well as in the northern states. 

The facts in brief were these: One of the important 
issues raised in the case was whether negroes were "citi- 
zens" of the United States within the meaning of that 
term as used in the Federal Constitution, and it was held 
by a majority of the court that they were not. In 
support of this conclusion, Chief Justice Taney went 




THE STATUE 
i - Another View! 



57 

into an historical account of the condition of the negro 
in this country and in England previous to the adoption 
of the Constitution, and especially as to the light in 
which that race was regarded at the time the Constitu- 
tion was framed. In the course of his remarks he said: 

It is difficult at this day to realize the state of public opinion 
in relation to that unfortunate race which prevailed in the 
civilized and enlightened portions of the world at the time of 
the Declaration of Independence*, and when the Constitution 
was framed and adopted, but the history of every European 
nation displayed it in a manner too plain to be mistaken. They 
had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an 
inferior order and altogether unfit to associate with the white 
race, either in social or^political relations, and so far inferior 
that they had no rights which the white man was bound to 
respect; and that the negro might justly and lawfully be re- 
duced to slavery for his benefit. . . . And in no nation 
was this opinion more firmly fixed or uniformly acted upon 
than by the English government and the English people. The 
opinion thus sustained and acted upon in England was natu- 
rally impressed upon the colonies which they founded on this 
side of the Atlantic, and accordingly, a negro of the African 
race was regarded by them as an article of property and held 
and bought and sold as such by everyone of the thirteen colon- 
ies which united in the Declaration of Independence and 
afterwards formed the Constitution of the United States. 

It will be seem, then, that the statement to which we 
have referred was only that of an historical fact made by 
Judge Taney for the purpose of ascertaining the probable 
meaning of the word "citizen," as used in the Constitu- 
tion. He did not make it as a judicial decision, nor 
state it as an axiom of morality or justice. It was simply 
a statement of an historical fact relative to an opinion 
formerly held. Still less did he affirm that such was his 
opinion, for in speaking of certain laws made in view of 
such opinion, he said: 



58 

It is not the province of the court to decide upon the justice 
or injustice, policy or impolicy, of these laws. The decision 
of that question belongs to the political or law-making power, 
to those who formed the sovereignty and framed the Con- 
stitution. The duty of the court is to interpret the instrument 
they have framed with the best lights we can obtain upon the 
subject, and to administer it according to its true intent and 
meaning when it was adopted. 

Mr. Pierce defended the decision of the supreme court 
in this case, and as was inevitable, had to share the odium 
that was cast upon the decision long after it had become 
a closed chapter in the constitutional history of the 
nation. I venture, however, to say that a calm, dis- 
passionate examination of the opinion of Judge Taney 
will lead to the conclusion that his argument was not 
answered by Judge Curtiss, who wrote the principal 
dissenting opinion, and should absolutely refute the 
charge so often made that the gentle, high-minded, 
incorruptible, accomplished chief justice made himself 
the willing agent for keeping in slavery thousands of the 
human race. 

The fugitive slave law, the Kansas-Nebraska bill, 
and the Missouri Compromise were all party and admin- 
istration measures which Mr. Pierce could not do other- 
wise than support, and which were designed to protect 
slavery and to counteract the effects which. were being 
made in the North to abolish it. But so long as slavery 
was sanctioned and protected by the Federal Constitu- 
tion it could not be said that the South was not justified 
in demanding that its constitutional right to hold slaves 
should not be questioned or attacked. To the people 
of this day it seems incredible that such legislation 
could have been enacted or defended. It is only in the 
retrospect of fifty years and by putting ourselves in 
imagination in the place of the southern people that we 
may find justification for the motives that actuated them, 



59 

and for the sincerity of their belief, not only that their 
cause was just, but that secession and the establishment 
of a separate nation were the only alternative remaining 
to them if they were to be denied or deprived of their 
rights under the Federal compact. 

In the light of these facts, we may now see how unjust 
were the assaults which at the time were made upon Mr. 
Pierce because he differed with other great statesmen 
and lawyers upon these questions of constitutional law, 
and how easy it was to blame him because he did not look 
upon secession and slavery as they are now looked upon 
after fifty years of moral progress and social and political 
reform. He should be judged in the light of the conditions 
as they existed in his time, and in view of the conflicting 
interests that were struggling for the mastery, the complex 
character of the questions of law that entered into the 
controversy, and the far-reaching disastrous consequences 
that would follow the destruction of the Union. 

Time has softened the passions that were aroused by 
that mighty struggle and has lifted into truer perspective 
the tremendous issues that divided the country and 
which brought the Union to the perilous verge of de- 
struction, and it has also brought into clearer light Mr. 
Pierce's integrity of purpose, his real loyalty to the coun- 
try which had so greatly honored him, at the time when 
the unsettled problems of the government were remorse- 
lessly dragging the nation into a war, the consequences of 
which no man could foresee. But may we not now see, 
that although Mr. Pierce may have made serious mis- 
takes, as the events finally showed, in the position which 
he took upon the momentous questions that concerned the 
nation in the supreme crisis of its existence, he was not a 
traitor, nor an ingrate, nor a coward, but a true lover of 
his country, and a statesman in whose accomplishments 
his native state may take a just and lasting pride. 



6o 



Mr. Carr, Introducing Mr. Whitcher: 

We have, as our last speaker, one who is not of the 
political faith of Franklin Pierce but who always, in 
this hall and elsewhere, has striven to obtain this statue 
to New Hampshire's only President. We are glad to 
welcome him, — Honorable William F. Whitcher. 



MR. WHITCHER'S ADDRESS. 

ri^HE memorial, to-day dedicated, is the well-considered 
-*• tribute the state of New Hampshire pays to the 
honorable service, the lofty achievements and the de- 
voted patriotism of a distinguished son. No feature of 
his life and character was more marked and prominent 
than such patriotism. Patriotism is a passion for country, 
and Franklin Pierce loved his country thus, and gave 
it his best service. He came of sturdy Revolutionary 
stock, and love of country, and devotion to its interests 
were his by inheritance. This love and devotion grew 
with his growth and ripened into fullness with his ripen- 
ing years. 

I quote two characteristic utterances of his, made 
under circumstances which preclude all doubt of their 
thorough sincerity. On the solemn occasion of his in- 
auguration as President of the United States he said: 

With the Union my best and dearest earthly hopes are 
entwined. . . . It's with me an earnest and vital belief 
that as the Union has been the source, under Providence, of 
our prosperity to this time, so it is the surest pledge of a 
continuance of the blessings we have enjoyed, and which 
we are sacredly bound to transmit undiminished to our 
children. 

Ten years later in the dark days of Civil War, when 




WILLIAM F. WHITCHER 



6i 

the fate of the Union yet hung in the balance, in an ad- 
dress made on that memorable Fourth of July, 1863, 
near where his statue now stands he said: 

I will not believe that the experiment of man's capacity 
for self-government, which was so successfully illustrated 
until all the Revolutionary men had passed to their final re- 
ward, is to prove a humiliating failure. Whatever others may 
do, we will never abandon the hope that the Union is to be 
restored; whatever others may do, we will cling to it as the 
mariner clings to the last plank when night and tempest close 
around him. 

With him Country and Union were one. The Union 
he ardently loved and devotedly served, was the Union 
formed by the Constitution, a Constitution he regarded 
with reverence, and the terms of which he believed should 
be strictly construed. It was a Union of sovereign 
states. The Constitution gave certain broad and general 
powers, powers, however, clearly defined, to a Federal 
Government. All others, he firmly believed, were re- 
tained by the states. Thus his country's welfare de- 
pended upon a constant discrimination between the sepa- 
rate rights and responsibilities of the states, and the 
common rights and obligations of the whole people 
under the general government. In a word, the country 
he loved and to which he gave his life devotion was "an 
indissoluble Union of indestructible states." From this 
conception of Country and Union he never swerved in 
word or deed during a career in which he was often mis- 
understood, often cruelly maligned. For his course 
and conduct he was calmly content to wait the judgment 
of later generations. 

We have come upon a time when the old idea of 
statehood is being obscured by a cloud of fantastic experi- 
ments under the name of a centralized "New National- 



62 

ism," but there are happily indications that the pendu- 
lum will yet swing towards a reasonable regard for 
reasonable and constitutional statehood. 

Franklin Pierce had thirteen predecessors in his ex- 
alted office of President. His successors also number 
thirteen. He stands midway in a distinguished line. He 
may not have been the greatest in that line; his star may 
not shine the most resplendent; but in purity of purpose 
and of character, in unswerving loyalty to conviction, in 
love of Country and Union, in steadfast devotion to the 
right, as God gave him to see the right, we may invite 
comparison with those who preceded him, and with 
those who have followed. 

New Hampshire pays him honor to-day — belated per- 
haps, — but all the more emphatic because belated. New 
Hampshire honors his memory, not impulsively or un- 
thinkingly, but soberly, thoughtfully, reverently. In 
honoring him, she honors herself. 



At the close of the exercises the large audience joined 
in singing "America," led by the band. The other 
numbers by the band, interspersed with the addresses, 
included: 

Sextette — " Lucia " Donizetti 

Ballet — "Dance of the Hours" Ponchielli 

Intermezzo — "Cavallieria Rusticana" Mascagni 

ending with a selection from Wagner's "Lohengrin." 




DAVID E. MURPHY 
Marshal of the Day 



APPENDIX. 



FRANKLIN PIERCE, THE LAWYER. 
By Hon. David Cross.* 

jV/TR. PRESIDENT and Brethren of the New Hamp- 
^ A shire Bar Association : 

Charles H. Bell, of Exeter, died in 1893, leaving in 
manuscript and partly printed "The Bench and Bar of 
New Hampshire," a book of 795 pages of rare excellence, 
remarkable discrimination, and great ability, containing 
the names of 1,472 lawyers, including the name of every 
member of the bar who has lived and practised in the 
state, together with biographical notes of all deceased 
lawyers and the judges of the higher courts. The prepa- 
ration of this book must have taken the patient labor of 
Mr. Bell for many years. It is a noble and enduring 
monument to his memory. It is remarkable for what 
it says clearly and fully of each, and for what it omits to 
say according to usual eulogy. 

Mr. Bell had rare ability for clear statement of facts 
in his profession and he brought to this work the enthu- 
siasm and earnest devotion of years of observation and 
study. There is no sameness in the sketches; each 
shows the lawyer or the judge as he was known. Some 
might think that their relative or friend was not given 
sufficient credit for legal learning, or that faults were 
too freely recorded. On the whole, as I have read and 
re-read sketches of those I have known, I am gratified 
and delighted at their fairness and justice, and sur- 
prised that any man had the ability to give such a varied 

* Delivered before the New Hampshire Bar Association, March is, 1900. 
5 



66 

and truthful memorial of the deceased judges and law- 
yers of the state. 

After having given considerable time to the study of 
the life of Franklin Pierce as a lawyer, and made inquir- 
ies of members of the bar, I come back to the record as 
given by Mr. Bell and find that on three printed pages 
he has given such a portraiture, so comprehensive, so 
clear, so exact, that at first it seems as though nothing 
can be added. 

As I have read over the names in Brother Bell's book, 
as I have looked into the sixty-eight volumes of New 
Hampshire Reports and examined the names of the 
judges, I am surprised to find that with the exception of 
Chief Justice Richardson, Jeremiah Smith, senior, and 
Samuel Bell, I have seen every judge who presided at 
trial terms, and every one whose recorded opinions are 
in the New Hampshire Reports. 

As a boy at school in Hopkinton I remember Judges 
Harris and Green. I remember the scholarly, genial, 
high-minded Gilchrist who pleased everybody by his 
fairness, and who left in the New Hampshire Reports evi- 
dence of his learning and ability. I remember the even- 
tempered, patient, upright, modest but firm Judge Woods 
who filled his office with credit to himself and to the 
Bench. I remember Joel Parker whose very look and 
presence commanded respect and confidence and whose 
ability as a lawyer, while upon the Bench, and while a 
professor at Harvard Law School, have been an honor to 
the state, and placed him among the leading jurists of the 
country. I remember, as some few of you may, Judge 
Charles F. Gove, able, honest and forceful, yet irritable 
and nervous to such a degree that lawyers and clients felt 
obliged to move with softness while the court was in session 
lest they be rebuked and perhaps ordered into custody. 
I remember Judges Bellows, Eastman, Perley, Sargent, 



67 

Bell, Bartlett, Cushing, Doe, Ladd, Bingham, Smithj 
and others. 

The Bar of the state may well be proud of the men who 
have presided in our highest courts. The decisions in 
our sixty-eight volumes are recognized in the judicial 
tribunals of the English-speaking world as authority upon 
the questions discussed. 

Of the lawyers, as well as the judges, whose names 
appear in Mr. Bell's book, it seems as though I had also 
seen nearly every prominent one among them. 

I remember being introduced to Jeremiah Mason by 
Judge Story at the Harvard Law School in 1842. He 
was a wonder to look upon, six and one-half feet tall 
and well proportioned. He was a giant physically, and 
Daniel Webster declared him to be the greatest lawyer 
in the country. 

I saw Joseph Bell many times. Daniel Webster I 
heard in several cases in Boston; Ichabod Bartlett and 
Attorney-General George Sullivan I heard in the Old 
North Meeting-house at Concord in the trial of Prescott 
for murder in the fall of 1834. The musical voice and 
fascinating manner of Mr. Sullivan and the eloquence 
and forceful manner of Ichabod Bartlett hold an abiding 
place in my memory as I recall their arguments. John 
S. Wells, Daniel M. Christie, James Bell, Daniel Clark, 
George W. Morrison, George Y. Sawyer, A. F. Stevens, 
Bainbridge Wadleigh, A. F. Pike, Gilman Marston, 
Mark Farley, Charles G. Atherton, James Wilson, 
William P. Wheeler, Thomas J. Whipple, John H. George, 
John Y. Mugridge, Daniel Barnard, Ossian Ray, A. R. 
Hatch and many others, I saw in court and know some- 
thing of their ability and success as lawyers. As I 
attempt to characterize such men as Joel Parker, Gil- 
christ and Woods as I saw them as a student and an 
attorney beginning practice, a sort of reverence comes 



68 

over me and I cannot help regarding them as superior 
to the judges of the present day. I believe that Judge 
Doe spoke correctly when he said that the lawyers and 
judges of the present day are better educated and more 
thoroughly equipped in the law than sixty years ago. 
I cannot, however, look up to the present court with 
quite the wonder and timidity that I did in 1841. 

As illustrating this principle of reverence for older 
lawyers and judges I recollect a peculiar incident of my 
early schoolboy days. In 1829 a man was arrested in 
the town of Weare for assault and battery. David 
Steele of Goffstown appeared upon one side and Josiah 
Danforth of Weare on the other. The trial was held 
in the schoolhouse and crowds attended the hearing 
for two days. I can remember some of the words 
spoken upon that trial. Mr. Danforth, in his desire to 
impress upon the justice of the peace who held the court, 
the solemnity and importance of the occasion, paid a 
high tribute to the cause of education and the school- 
house in which the court was held. Among other things 
he said, "The schoolhouse is the sentinel-box of liberty." 
I have heard many tributes paid to the cause of common 
school education and to the schoolhouse of New England, 
but I have never heard a higher than this by Mr. Dan- 
forth. The two men, Steele and Danforth, with their 
ruffled shirts and dignified appearance, continue to 
impress me as somehow different and superior to other 
men, although subsequent acquaintance and experience 
convinced me that they were ordinary lawyers. 

As I recall the lawyers of the past seventy years, as I 
read their names in this book of Mr. Bell, I can see them, 
one and all; they are real to me; I knew them; I remem- 
ber them now. They all like the rest of us struggled 
their brief day, most of them with success. 

As we read name after name of the 1,472 lawyers, we 



6 9 

are conscious in so many instances that it is only a name 
to us, and that the real life and what it accomplished is 
not recorded, and that the reputation of a lawyer, as of 
most men, is limited to his own time. 

This Association, as I understand it, proposes to per- 
petuate the memory of the lawyers of the past, and at 
each returning annual meeting give some account of 
those who have finished their work. In this record of 
Mr. Bell, and in our records of the future will be the 
names of many, very many, not known beyond their 
immediate neighborhood but who in educational, moral, 
and social influence wrought a good work and lived 
honorable and useful lives. There is hardly a statute 
from 1776, which has not been modified and improved 
by the influence and work of members of our profession. 
The strange and senseless methods of procedure in court 
have given place to good sense and just rules, the work 
entirely of judges and lawyers. 

Brethren, we have a rich inheritance. Among the 
recorded names of the bar of this state are men who 
achieved a national, and some of them a world-wide, 
fame. What these men wrought in life is before us. 
What they did worthily we can attempt to do. The 
record of their lives is a bond of brotherhood; it is an 
encouragement and inspiration to us, and to those who 
shall follow, to recall them from time to time and to 
learn how they lived. What helped them in their suc- 
cesses and defeats may well be worthy of our considera- 
tion. 

I am honored by the invitation of the officers of this 
Association, at this first annual meeting, to bring to 
your attention Franklin Pierce, one of these brothers of 
the past, that I may fulfil the obligation that each and 
all owe to our profession, and comply with one of the 
leading purposes of our organization, so clearly stated 



7o 

in Article 3 of the Constitution which reads, — "To pre- 
serve the memory of worthy members of the profession 
by publishing such modest and truthful accounts of their 
lives and doings as may be worthy to be rescued from the 
oblivion which otherwise so inevitably swallows up the 
most devoted and useful labors, as well as the most 
brilliant achievements of the lawyer, as soon as he is 
overtaken by the fate which awaits us all, and retires 
from the field of his activity,— his victories and defeats." 

Almost a generation has passed since the death of 
General Pierce. But few remain who can speak of him 
from personal knowledge during the period of his active 
life from 1826 to 1857. 

The law was his chosen profession and he honored it. 
The foundation of what he accomplished was laid in the 
study and practice of law. He was taken from our ranks 
to the House of Representatives and Senate, and returned 
to the profession with such enthusiasm as has been rarely 
seen. He was again called to the highest official position 
in the world as President of the United States. He 
lived in such an eventful period of our national history, 
was so much a part of it, that his ability and rank as a 
lawyer are obscured and forgotten. 

It is due to him as our brother that this Association 
review his life and place upon its records some apprecia- 
tive memorial. 

His life as a lawyer and his official life are so blended 
that it is impossible adequately to present one without 
giving consideration to the other, and full justice to him 
as lawyer, citizen and high official can only be done by 
presenting him as a man, and what in his early life and 
maturing years made him what he was. 

He was born in Hillsborough, November 23, 1804. 
He was graduated at Bowdoin College at twenty years 
of age. He took an honorable position as a scholar dur- 



7i 

ing his college course. He studied law in the offices of 
Levi Woodbury in Portsmouth, Edward Parker at 
Amherst and at the Northampton Law School, under 
Judge Samuel Howe, Elijah H. Mills and John H. Ash- 
man. Ashman was afterwards one of the professors at 
the Harvard Law School. The system of instruction of 
the law school of that time comprised a course of lectures 
in the various departments of the law, recitations and 
examinations in the principal elementary works, moot 
courts and discussions, oral and written, upon legal 
questions. His opportunity for learning law was excep- 
tionally good, better than most young men of his time. 
In 1827, at twenty-three years of age, he was admitted 
to the bar and opened an office in the lower village of 
Hillsborough, in a small building of the kind such as 
country lawyers were accustomed to use, and there con- 
tinued his office until he moved to Concord about 1838. 

In 1834 he was married to Jane Means Appleton, 
daughter of Rev. Dr. Jesse Appleton, president of Bow- 
doin College. There were three children born to them: 
the first died in infancy, the second, Frank Robert, 
in 1844, in his fourth year, and the third, Benjamin, in 
January, 1853, in the eleventh year of his age. 

It is said of her: "Her fine natural endowments were 
developed by a careful and generous culture, not merely 
under the forms of education, but through the agency of 
all the impressions and influences of her early home, and 
the circle of related families. Her tastes were of exceed- 
ing delicacy and purity. Her eyes appreciated in a 
remarkable degree whatever was beautiful in nature and 
art. She shrank with extreme sensitiveness from public 
observation. It is no disparagement to others who have 
occupied her station at the White House to claim for her 
an unsurpassed dignity and grace, delicacy and purity in 
all that public life. There was a home — a Christian 



72 

home — quietly and constantly maintained, and very 
many hearts rejoice in its blessedness." 

From 1842 to 1852, with the exception of one year 
while in the Mexican War, was the time of his most 
entire and devoted attention to the practice of law. 

Let me give a brief outline of his life outside of the 
practice of law from his twenty-fifth to his forty-eighth 
year. 

From his twenty-fifth to his twenty-ninth year of age 
he was a member of the House of Representatives from 
Hillsborough for four years, two of which he was speaker. 
At the age of twenty-nine he was elected to the United 
States House of Representatives and held the office for 
four years. At thirty-three years of age he was elected 
United States senator for six years, and there with Web- 
ster, Clay, Benton, Calhoun and other great men of the 
time, held a respectable standing for five years, and then 
resigned and returned to New Hampshire to practise 
law. 

In 1838, when hewasabout to change his residence from 
Hillsborough to Concord, the citizens of Hillsborough 
tendered him an invitation to a public dinner, and in 
his answer declining he said, "I shall leave Hillsborough 
with no ordinary regret. There are a thousand reasons 
why it cannot be otherwise — I have hitherto known no 
other home. 

"Here have passed many of the happiest days and 
months of my life. With these streams and mountains 
are associated most of the delightful recollections of 
buoyant and happy boyhood, and in my early intercourse 
with the generous, independent and intelligent yeomanry 
of Hillsborough I became attached to, and learned how 
highly to appreciate that class of the community which 
constitutes the true nobility of this country. I need 
hardly say that I shall never cease to remember my 



73 

birthplace with pride as well as with affection, and with 
still more pride shall I recollect the steady, unqualified 
and generous confidence which has been reposed in me 
by its inhabitants." 

Upon the appointment of Levi Woodbury as judge of 
the United States Supreme Court in 1846, he was offered 
by Governor Steele the appointment of United States 
senator and declined it. In his letter declining to accept, 
he said: "My personal wishes and purposes in 1842, 
when I resigned the seat in the senate were, as I sup- 
posed, so perfectly understood that I have not, for a 
moment, contemplated a return to public life. Without 
adverting to other grounds which would have much 
influence in forming my decision, the situation of my 
business, professional and otherwise, is such that it would 
be impossible for me to leave the state suddenly, as I 
should be called upon to do, and be absent for months, 
without sacrificing, to a certain extent, the interests, 
and disregarding the reasonable expectations, of those 
who rely upon my services." 

In 1846 his party offered to nominate him for governor 
of the state and he declined it. The same year he was 
offered by President Polk a place in his cabinet as 
attorney-general. President Polk in his letter tender- 
ing him the office, said, "I have selected you for this 
important office from my personal knowledge of you, 
and without the solicitation or suggestion of anyone. 
I have done so because I have no doubt your personal 
association with me would be pleasant, and from the 
consideration that, in the discharge of the duties of the 
office, you could render me important aid in conducting 
my administration." 

In declining to accept this position General Pierce said : 
"Although the early years of my manhood were devoted 
to public life, it was never really suited to my taste. I 



74 

longed, as I am sure you must often have done, for the 
quiet and independence that belongs only to the private 
citizen, and now, at forty, I feel that desire stronger 
than ever. 

"Coming unexpectedly, as this offer does, it would 
be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange the business of 
an extensive practice, in a manner at all satisfactory to 
myself, or to those who have committed their interests 
to my care, and who rely on my services. When I 
resigned my seat in the senate in 1842, I did it with the 
fixed purpose never again to be voluntarily separated 
from my family for any considerable length of time, 
except at the call of my country in the time of war." 

During the same year he accepted the office of United 
States district attorney for the state of New Hampshire 
as in the line of his profession. 

In 1847 he enlisted as a private in a New Hampshire 
company for the war with Mexico, and was made colonel, 
brigadier-general, and major-general, and served during 
that campaign. In 1852 the delegates from New Hamp- 
shire to the National Democratic Convention desired to 
bring his name before the convention as President of the 
United States, and he refused to allow them to present 
his name. In 1850 he was elected president of the New 
Hampshire Constitutional Convention by a vote of 257 
to 6. In a letter to a New Hampshire delegate to the 
National Convention he wrote, in 1852, "The same 
motive which induced me several years ago to retire 
from public life, and which since that time has controlled 
my judgment in this respect, now impels me to say that 
the use of my name, in any event, before the Democratic 
National Convention at Baltimore, to which you are a 
delegate, would be utterly repugnant to my tastes and 
wishes." 
||ln a letter dated May 27, 1852, to another of the New 



75 

Hampshire delegates, he wrote, "As I told you, my 
name will not be before the convention; but I cannot 
help feeling that what there is to be done will be impor- 
tant beyond men and parties — transcendently important 
to the hopes of Democratic progress and civil liberty." 

In June, 1852, at the age of forty-seven he was nomi- 
nated for President of the United States and in November 
was elected, receiving the electoral vote of twenty-seven 
out of thirty-one states of the Union. No other man in 
New Hampshire has ever held the office of President of 
the United States, no man has held offices such as he 
held with less apparent effort to obtain them. No law- 
yer has ever been elected to the place of senator of the 
United States and resigned before his term of office had 
expired and returned to the drudgery and routine of 
the profession. 

What was there in his parentage, his early life and 
association, which might tend to give him mental fiber 
and character and to give to the world a prophecy of 
his qualities as a lawyer? 

The town of Hillsborough where he was born, the 
scenery, the hills, the winter and summer life upon the 
farm, were much the same as country boys of the first 
part of the century saw throughout New Hamsphire. 

His father, Governor Benjamin Pierce, was a marked 
man in appearance, rather short, thick-set, an honest, 
inviting face, his eyes bright and merry, his lips firm, 
his words nervous, quick and decisive, as I saw him 
during two winters of 1834-35 and 1835-36. He was a 
successful farmer of more than average property for 
farmers of his time. Night after night, during the win- 
ter months, around the big, open fireplace with its bright 
light, gathered his group of children. I can seem to see 
the old man as he calls the curly-headed, bright-eyed 
Frank to his side and tells him of his early life. Over 



76 

and over again he relates to the eager and attentive boy 
facts which seem now to be romantic legends. 

In substance a part of the story was that at six years 
of age his father died ; that at eighteen years of age notice 
came to Chelmsford, Massachusetts, April 19, 1775, 
while he was plowing in the field, of a battle going on at 
Lexington; that he left the plough, took his uncle's gun 
and military equipments, and started for Lexington; 
that he was one of the "irregulars" who rode and fired 
at will, following Pitcairn's soldiers towards Boston; 
that he took part in the Battle of Bunker Hill; that he 
enlisted in the army of the United States, and was present 
in many a hard-fought battle; that at one time seeing the 
flag struck down, he rushed forward, seized the staff, 
and raised the flag, and led on the fight for which he was 
promoted to the rank of ensign; that he was afterwards 
made captain; that Washington called him into his 
presence and made him a member of his staff; that for 
nine years he continued in the service of the United 
States engaged in every vicissitude of battle until the 
close of the Revolutionary War; that at the close of the 
war he came to the town of Hillsborough, then almost 
a wilderness, and purchased fifty acres of land and built 
upon it a log hut, and for a year lived alone, getting his 
own meals, sleeping upon a blanket as he had been 
accustomed to do during the years of his service in the 
army. 

Governor Pierce was always a generous, kind-hearted 
man and liberal at all times for public, religious and 
charitable purposes. One of the most characteristic 
acts of his life, which tells us more than words can 
express his liberality and kindness of heart, was that 
when he was elected sheriff of Hillsborough County in 
1 81 8 he found in the jail at Amherst three men imprisoned 
for debt. One had been there four years, one three, and 



77 

the third for one year. Governor Pierce, then sheriff, 
had no legal right or authority to discharge these men 
from prison, but moved by his own kindly feelings he 
paid the debt of each for which they were imprisoned 
and set them free. By the law of the state at that time 
anyone who failed to pay his debts might be imprisoned. 
Benjamin Pierce, although uneducated, had the capac- 
ity, the energy and the character to gain the respect and 
confidence of the people of his town and the state, so 
that he held for thirteen years the office of representative 
from Hillsborough, and subsequently of sheriff of the 
county, of state councilor and governor, and in all the 
positions he acquitted himself with honor and credit to 
himself and the state. 

Franklin Pierce must have been present when, in 1816, 
his father invited all the surviving officers and soldiers 
who had served in the War of the Revolution and the 
War of 1 81 2, to an entertainment at his home. The 
day was spent in feasting and in reminiscence of their 
past lives. It was an event calculated to impress upon 
the mind of any sensitive and enthusiastic boy feelings 
of loyalty and patriotism. 

From his birth to his entering college in 1820, there 
lived in the town of Hillsborough such men as John 
Gilbert, who was at the Battle of Bunker Hill and through 
the War of the Revolution; the descendants of Isaac 
Baldwin, killed in the same battle; John McNeil, a cap- 
tain in the War of the Revolution; General John McNeil, 
distinguished in the Battle of Chippewa and at Lundy's 
Lane. These men and their associates were of ten visi- 
tors and on the most intimate terms with the family of 
Governor Pierce. 

From such parentage, with such associations in his 
boyhood and early manhood, he could not help being 
imbued with the strongest feelings of patriotism and 



78 

devotion to his country, with the highest regard for men 
of every class, with the highest and best idea of integrity 
and honor, and no son with such parents, brothers, 
friends and townsmen could fail to be impelled by every 
thought and impulse to choose for himself what was 
highest and noblest. 

Between 1844 and 1852 I heard General Pierce in 
several trials before a jury. 

In 1845 he assisted me in the trial of my first case 
before the jury at Amherst. George W. Morrison was 
on the other side. 

Mr. Pierce came to my room, examined the writ and 
pleadings, and talked with the witnesses. After we were 
alone he said to me: "You can try this case alone. 
There is no need of my assistance." I told him I wanted 
his help. He then said: "I advise you to try every case 
you get a chance to try. You may fail, but no matter. 
I failed in my first case, but I then resolved that I would 
try 999 cases and fail every time, if clients gave me a 
chance, rather than give up." 

His manner of examining the papers and preparing for 
trial was so kind and brotherly and his suggestions 
about trials so useful that it made an impression, and 
gave me courage to attempt success. 

I have never found another lawyer, possibly excepting 
George Y. Sawyer, who was so kind and so frank and full 
of suggestive points. 

As a typical case allow me to give somewhat in detail 
one trial as I saw it. The case of McDougal v. Shirley 
was a libel for publishing an article in a newspaper called 
The Gleaner, and attracted more public attention at the 
time than that of any civil case. This newspaper from 
somewhere in 1838 to 1846 was published in Manchester 
by John Caldwell. It was a vile sheet, and was filled 
weekly with vile and slanderous talk about men and 



79 

women in all stations of life. From country towns 
letters were written to the editor for fun, but generally 
from malice. 

In 1845 an article appeared libelling the character of 
Mr. McDougal of Goffstown. He was a substantial 
farmer, a man of good standing in society, and good 
character in every respect. He was much incensed at 
the charges made in The Gleaner, and called upon the 
publisher of the paper to learn the author. The editor, 
or some of his employees, gave him to understand that 
it was Mr. Shirley, another respectable farmer of the 
town. A suit was brought by George Barstow, a lawyer 
in Manchester, against Shirley, and at the April term, 
1846, there was a trial at Amherst. George Barstow 
and Governor Henry Hubbard appeared for the plain- 
tiff; David Steele of Goffstown, J. U. Parker of Merri- 
mack, and Franklin Pierce for the defendant. 

Judge Gilchrist with two side judges presided. The 
people of Goffstown, Bedford, Manchester, and Am- 
herst were all deeply interested in the parties and the 
result of the trial. The good character and standing 
of the parties brought many friends to each side, and the 
court-house was filled with spectators for many days 
during the trial. A large number of witnesses were 
called upon both sides. At that time neither the plain- 
tiff nor the defendant was allowed to testify. 

George Barstow, for the plaintiff, was an accomplished, 
scholarly man and learned in the law. He occupied 
quite a conspicuous position in Manchester for many years 
as a lawyer. He was the author of a history of New 
Hampshire and went from Manchester to San Francisco 
where it is said he acquired wealth and reputation. 

Henry Hubbard had been governor of the state and 
United States senator and was regarded as one of the 
ablest lawyers of the state. 



8o 

For the defense David Steele of Goffstown who had 
acquired such a reputation in laying out and discon- 
tinuing highways that Charles G. Atherton, at one time 
in discussing some questions before the court in which 
Mr. Steele was upon the other side, in his quiet, crisp 
way said, "I cannot be expected to dispute my brother 
Steele upon this point when we all recognize in him 'The 
Collossus of Rhodes.' " 

James U. Parker of Merrimack was an entirely differ- 
ent man. He was a sharp, keen man, armed at all points 
upon questions of evidence before a jury and never for- 
got to take advantage of the weak points of his adversary 
or to use to the utmost the good points upon his own side. 

Many people besides the publisher of The Gleaner and 
the parties had an interest in the trial of this case, and 
Governor Hubbard had been selected as the ablest and 
best lawyer to meet Mr. Pierce. Hubbard, as governor 
and United States senator, was known politically but 
had no hold upon the jury in Hillsborough County. 
Pierce, as was his custom in every case in which he was 
engaged, knew the name and locality of every juryman, 
and not only knew everyone during the trial but if he 
had met him one year or ten years afterwards anywhere he 
could have called him by name. In this respect Pierce 
was like James G. Blaine and Ben Butler, who never for- 
got the face or name of any man they had once become 
acquainted with, and at one time after his presidential 
term of office was over said, that until he went to Wash- 
ington as President, he never forgot any man whom he 
had once met and whose name he had learned. 

Another advantage which Pierce had at this trial was, 
that every juryman not only respected him, but had a 
sort of love and state pride in him beyond what had 
been towards any other man in the history of our state. 
In the course of the trial a son of the defendant, then 



8i 

thirteen years of age, now well known as Colonel Shirley, 
was called as a witness. His testimony was important 
for the defense, as it contradicted one of the principal 
witnesses for the plaintiff. It related to the plaintiff's 
witness visiting the defendant to buy a yoke of oxen, and 
to conversation that passed between the parties. The 
boy testified that he remembered the circumstances 
and the talk, because the oxen were his favorites and he 
called it that he owned them, and did not wish his father 
to sell them. 

Hubbard cross-examined the boy quietly and gently 
but could not lead him in any way to contradict his testi- 
mony. Then finally he arose from his seat, approached 
him, and in earnest and almost savage manner attempted 
to overawe and frighten him. The boy stood the test 
and waited with perfect ease to see what was next, turn- 
ing his eyes affectionately and reliantly upon Pierce. 

Pierce had watched this cross-examination. His in- 
terest in the case and his sympathy for the boy were in- 
tense, and as the last answer was given and as their eyes 
met, there was such a glow in the face and eyes of Pierce 
that as Colonel Shirley to-day will tell you, it seemed 
as if a sunburst with a soft mellow light fell upon him 
and every juryman. It touched the hearts of everyone 
who saw it. This appearance upon the face of General 
Pierce has been noted by others in similar cases. 

Hon. Joseph W. Fellows of Manchester relates an in- 
cident of a trial in some country town, when he was a 
boy of some fifteen or sixteen years of age, and he de- 
scribes the appearance as a sort of illumination on the 
face which made a deep and lasting impression upon his 
memory. This same appearance although peculiar to 
General Pierce, has been noticed in the description of 
S. S. Prentiss of Mississippi, of William Pinckney and 
others. 



82 

Pierce was fully prepared upon the facts and law of the 
case. He knew and was prepared to prove that two of 
the witnesses for the plaintiff were absolutely and wil- 
fully false. There was one Plynn White, witness for the 
plaintiff, an associate of the publisher of The Gleaner, 
who had testified to seeing the defendant in Manchester 
in conversation with Caldwell, the publisher, whose testi- 
mony, if true, would tend strongly against the defendant. 
At first Pierce quietly questioned Plynn White and led 
him to thoughts almost entirely outside of the case; he 
then called the witness's attention to the exact locality 
where he stood, and where Shirley and Caldwell stood, 
and in various ways brought White to swear positively 
over and over again as to the exact position. 

The whole cross-examination was so apparently fair 
and yet brought the witness to testify so positively that 
anyone who was previously familiar with the facts, or 
as they were afterwards developed, recognized Pierce's 
tact and ingenuity. In rebuttal, General Pierce showed 
by the testimony of two reliable witnesses, that if Plynn 
White's story was true he must have seen through the 
brick walls of the city hall. 

He made no mistake in his cross-examination in this 
case, and it was one of his greatest qualifications in the 
trial before a jury that he never made a mistake in his 
appreciation of the witness before him. He seemed to 
have an intuitive knowledge of the honesty or dishonesty, 
or the mental weakness or strong points, of a witness. It 
was the custom at that time for counsel to contest the 
admissibility of much of the evidence brought before the 
court. This was so customary that no one thought such 
objections would injure his case in the minds of the jury; 
in fact, no lawyer was thought to have done his duty 
unless he objected to the utmost to the admissibility of 
much of the evidence. 



83 

It was a rare treat, when such a question came up, 
to see the quiet, yet dignified and deferential manner 
of General Pierce towards the court, and towards the 
counsel in presenting objections. If the court should 
rule against him he made the jury believe that he was 
right and the court was wrong. 

After many days of trial Pierce's argument for the 
defense occupied, as I remember it, some three or four 
hours. He began in a conversational tone, presenting 
to the jury the importance of the case and the duty de- 
volving upon each of them. He spoke of the plaintiff 
and the defendant in equal terms of kindness, that they 
were both honest, fair-minded farmers and neighbors 
in Goffstown, that the plaintiff had been deceived by 
others and led to the belief of the guilt of the defendant, 
that when the article appeared in the newspaper and the 
plaintiff called upon the publisher demanding the name 
of the author, Caldwell, knowing that Shirley was a man 
of property, insinuated first that he was the author, and 
finally both Caldwell and Plynn White asserted posi- 
tively that Shirley was the guilty man. 

It was contended by Pierce that a man by the name of 
Wells had written the article, partly in fun and partly 
in revenge. Wells was a man of no property, and 
Caldwell with Wells' assistance made McDougall, the 
plaintiff, believe that it was the work of Shirley. The 
arraignment of the three conspirators, Caldwell, White, 
and Wells, for sarcasm and bitterness of invective, and 
at the same time so just according to the evidence, I 
have never seen or heard equaled in any court. While 
he commented upon the testimony of the boy Shirley, 
and the weight the jury should give to it compared with 
that given by the man proven guilty of perjury, he ex- 
hibited a specimen of eloquence rarely seen anywhere. 
I wish I could give his words; I cannot, but I remember 



8 4 

-clearly the apology and sympathy for his distinguished 
•opponent, his imploring the jury to fairly and dispas- 
sionately consider and weigh the testimony of the boy, 
and this man, exclaiming in a quotation from one of 
William Pinckney's arguments, "Place the testimony 
of this man in one scale, and of the boy in the other scale, 
and the weight of the man's testimony is lighter than the 
down which flies from a linnet's wing." 

His argument in this case for ability, clear and beauti- 
ful illustration, apt quotations and pathos, has never 
been equaled in New Hampshire. It was the eloquence 
which stirs and rules the heart and conquers the reason. 

When General Pierce closed his argument there was not 
a juryman and hardly a man in the court-house whose 
cheeks were not wet with tears. 

Governor Hubbard, with his first words, said, "Gentle- 
men, I did not come to bore for water." These words 
were a sad mistake. Every person felt it a sort of criti- 
cism upon himself for the exhibition of sympathy which 
he could not control. Hubbard, in a long argument, 
was able, energetic, and logical. With splendid figure, 
head leaning back somewhat in the attitude we see in the 
pictures of Henry Clay, he walked up and down by the 
side of the table before the jury and argued and pleaded 
with great ability. Although at times quiet and sub- 
dued, he was often fierce, declamatory and thunderous 
in voice, and towards the close he was actually frothing 
at the mouth with the spittle scattered around him. 
Hubbard failed utterly to reach the hearts of the jury. 
He talked and talked and argued and declaimed in vain, 
for Pierce had captured the heart of every juryman, and 
when they retired they immediately gave a verdict for 
the defendant. 

I heard General Pierce in many other cases in Hills- 
borough County between the years of 1843 and 1852, 



85 

notably his defense of the Wentworths for the Parker 
murder in 1846. In every case he was master of the sit- 
uation. Friends, political and social, never stood in his 
way of doing justice to his client. There was never any 
indifference or half-heartedness in his efforts. He did 
his best in every case; there was an apparent seriousness 
in every case. The first thing that attracted one's atten- 
tion in listening to his arguments was the absolute sincer- 
ity, depth and fervor of his conviction. It may be truth- 
fully said of him as was said of S. S. Prentiss of Missis- 
sippi, " Before he uttered a word you felt by his very look 
and air that he was deeply in earnest, and no sooner had 
he opened his lips than you felt it by the quick, respon- 
sive sympathy in your own bosom." Some men, like 
Webster, require a great occasion or a case of unusual 
importance to arouse them to their best efforts. I have 
heard Webster when to all appearances he was indiffer- 
ent and slow. 

Rufus Choate and Franklin Pierce could not help 
being stirred and nerved to their utmost effort in every 
case, and on every occasion when they made an argu- 
ment before a jury. Eloquence with them was as natural 
as a song with the thrush. When I say it was natural, 
I mean that it was inborn; that physically and mentally 
they were fitted for eloquent speakers, and these natural 
gifts had been cultivated and improved by years of per- 
sistent labor and effort. Pierce's first efforts before a 
jury were failures, but by perseverance he overcame 
all obstacles. Judge Perley said of him, "He always 
knew the law in every case." 

Joel Parker, in his address before the Harvard Law 
School in 1853 upon Daniel Webster, in speaking of 
courtesy towards opposing counsel said: "And in this 
connection I may repeat to you, that I have never wit- 
nessed professional civility of a higher or more uniform 



86 

character than that exhibited by the gentleman who 
now holds the office of the president of United States, 
and by the learned brother (Judge Perley), for years his 
opposing counsel at the bar, who has since adorned the 
bench of the Superior Court of New Hampshire." 

Judge William L. Foster, in his address before the 
Southern Bar Association in 1894, said: "I shall only 
express the universal sentiment of all who knew him, 
when I say that he was probably the most brilliant ad- 
vocate ever known in New Hampshire. His fascinating 
grace, eloquence and power were unequaled; and his 
success as a jury lawyer was unattained by any other 
member of the profession." 

Judge Sylvester Dana, who was a student in the office 
of Pierce & Minot from 1839 to 1843, writes me as fol- 
lows: "Pierce was the most affable of men, and his stu- 
dents shared largely in his kindly courtesies. He was 
accustomed to discuss with us legal and other questions 
as though we were his equals, and contributed in many 
ways to make us feel at home. He gave to his cases the 
most laborious and exhaustive preparation, leaving no 
details, however minute, unexplored. He never took a 
legal position before the court which he did not believe 
to be tenable." 

Honorable Benjamin F. Ayer, who commenced prac- 
tice of the law in Manchester, and for many years has 
been one of the foremost lawyers in Chicago, in writing 
me of General Pierce says: "He was a lawyer of very 
remarkable powers, and I am chargeable with no exag- 
geration in saying that among those I have known in the 
profession who have been distinguished as advocates 
before juries, I have never met his superior. He was 
eminently a man of whom the bar in his native state — 
and no state has been more prolific of great lawyers — 
may be justly proud." 



87 

Brother J. W. Fellows says that in 1845 a school 
teacher was arrested in the town of Sutton for too severely 
punishing two pupils in a district school. The trial at- 
tracted much attention, and the whole town of Sutton, 
men, women and children, were present as interested 
parties. The court consisted of two justices of the peace. 
Pierce was defending the school teacher. I cannot re- 
member the words and I cannot describe his manner, but 
I shall never forget his eulogium upon the efforts of the 
school teacher, nor the scorn with which he scourged 
those who were attempting to bring the teacher into 
ridicule and to defeat the purposes of education. " But 
more than anything else is impressed upon my mind," 
says Brother Fellows; "the radiant light like a halo 
which seemed to beam into the face of General Pierce as 
he made his appeal for the school teacher and the vindi- 
cation of good order and good morals in the community." 
Franklin Pierce cannot be placed in the list of learned 
and profound lawyers with Ira Perley, Jeremiah Mason, 
Daniel M. Christie, George Y. Sawyer, and many others 
whose lives were devoted exclusively to law. His supe- 
riority was in his tact, ability and eloquence before a 
jury. What was there in his mental and physical en- 
dowments that fitted him for a great advocate? 

In the first place he had a love— a passion— for the 
law as a profession, and an indomitable determination 
to become the best advocate that courage, labor, un- 
tiring zeal and effort could make him. This love is 
evidenced from his declining from time to time official 
positions and returning to the practice of the law. This 
is evident, too, from the enthusiasm with which he en- 
tered upon its pursuit. 

He had an attractive physique, his manner was grace- 
ful, yet strong and manly. There was a sort of chivalrous 
bearing towards the court, counsel and witnesses, that 



88 

won the respect and affection of all who met him. He 
had the will power and the habit to throw off for the 
time all thought of business and all anxieties, and to 
sleep day or night almost as he wished. He had won- 
derful recuperative power. I have known him while 
engaged for many days in the trial of an important 
case, to say to his associate at the noon recess, "I am 
tired and will sleep for an hour." It seemed but a 
minute later when he was sleeping as a child, and at 
the end of an hour's solid sleep arose refreshed and 
ready for his case. 

He had a vigorous understanding, gifted with a rare 
faculty of analysis. He had a quick, inventive fancy, 
strong memory and an impressionable temperament. His 
voice was pleasant and finely modulated. His memory 
of the names of persons and localities was remarkable. 
This was a natural gift, but yet cultivated during all his 
professional life. He had an intuitive sense of "men and 
life by which the falsehood and veracity of witnesses, 
the probability and improbability of transactions, as 
sworn to, were discerned in a moment." 

From childhood he entered sympathetically into the 
lives of all classes. He had a frankness and openness of 
manner which attracted all who had to do with him. 
As Hawthorne, his college classmate and lifelong per- 
sonal friend, in his biography published in 1852, in 
speaking of his college life says: "He was distinguished 
by the same fascination of manner that has proven so 
magical in winning him an unbounded personal popu- 
larity. It is wronging him, however, to call this peculi- 
arity a mere effect of manner; its source lies deep in the 
kindliness of his nature, and in the liberal, generous, 
catholic sympathy that embraces all who are worthy of 
it. Few men possess anything like it; so irresistible as 
it is, so sure to draw forth an undoubting confidence, and 



8 9 

so true to the promise which it gives. It belongs to him 
at this moment and will never leave him." 

He was fair and just to every honest witness, and he 
had the ability to make the jury see and feel the false- 
hood of the pretender or the liar. He knew what would 
appeal to the average juror. As was said of Rufus 
Choate I can say of him, "He treated every man as 
though he was a gentleman, and he treated every gentle- 
man almost as he would a lady." 

As was said of Prentiss, "There was nothing to imply 
that while his lips were on fire, his heart might be cold ; 
but every look, tone and gesture carried with them the 
conviction that he was honest, sincere and spoke the 
motives of his inmost heart and conscience." 

At the end of his presidential term of office he spent 
the next two years with his invalid wife at the Madeira 
Islands and in foreign travel. Ever since the death of 
her son by a railroad accident, in January, 1853, she had 
never known vigorous health or freedom from consum- 
ing grief. All that anxious, constant care and love could 
do was done by the General with the devotion and ten- 
derness such only as a husband with the same deep sor- 
row could bestow upon his sorrowing wife. In December, 
1863, Mrs. Pierce died, and General Pierce died in 
October, 1869. 

Thus, brethren, I have touched upon Franklin Pierce 
as a lawyer, with some of the prominent events of his 
life. He was in many respects the most remarkable man 
in the history of the state of New Hampshire. He had 
honors thrust upon him, and he wore them modestly 
and nobly. He cast aside high offices like toys of small 
value, preferring the routine of professional life and his 
home with his wife and children and the enthusiastic 
friends of his early life. He was called again to the 
highest office in the nation, and administered its affairs 



90 

with dignity, with ability, with honor, and with the per- 
sonal regard of all who had to do with him. 

Colonel Forney, a political opponent, in writing of him 
immediately after his death in 1869, among other things 
said: "Let us think of Franklin Pierce as a man of that 
greatness of heart which constitutes the true nobility 
of character, and which constantly exhibits itself in 
words, looks, tone, and accents and works of kindness. 
Kindness of heart was his great quality. No exaltation 
of station, no degree of prosperity, no applause of men, 
no adventitious circumstances whatever, caused him to 
overlook, much less to neglect, an appeal for aid by the 
lowly and suffering. Thoughts of others were his dis- 
tinguishing quality. Who so forward as he to see virtue 
in the humblest guise, and to recognize and respect it as 
much or more than if the subject of it were of the highest 
name and of loftiest lineage? The peer in eloquence and 
oratory and argumentation of his contemporaries at the 
bar and in public life, yet who so prompt to express en- 
comium of the great efforts of others? 

"Of human feelings the unbounded lord, and there- 
fore the charm of the social circle, who was so stricken 
by public or private misfortune? Who so profoundly 
awed by the dispensations of Divine Providence?" 

I shall fail to give a fair sketch of the life of this man if 
I omit an event which to him and his wife, in their inner- 
most selves, was of more lasting effect than all else be- 
sides. 

In January, 1853, before he had taken his seat as 
President, while traveling between Boston and Concord 
with his wife and only child, a boy of eleven years of age, 
the car was thrown from the track, and the child instantly 
killed. It is an event too near the heart for speech, 
written or spoken. Words of themselves have no heart- 
beat, except to the few who have been compelled by like 



9i 

affliction to listen. I can well understand how com- 
pletely overwhelmed was the delicate and sensitive mother 
with a grief from which she could never recover. 

How worthless seemed the prospective honors and the 
pageantry of the presidential life; how empty and vain 
all earthly things in the presence of their dead child, 
and what terrible grief swept over him as he saw his 
fondest hopes suddenly blasted. 

An intimate friend of the General told me that General 
Pierce was never the same man after this event as before. 
Some of us know he could never have been the same to 
himself, however he might appear to others. 

He brought to this sad experience the same will power 
to bear up wonderfully and heroically and to go about 
his home life and public duties during his term of office 
as if nothing had happened, while at the same time there 
was a continued sense of something gone out of his life 
that he had counted on, a longing — a tearful longing — 
for that boy who bore the honored name of his father, 
Benjamin Pierce, and upon whom he expected his own 
mantle of successful life to fall. 

That event was a mystery. We cannot explain it. 
For one, I feel, as I presume many of you do, like reach- 
ing out my hands and calling with subdued and sad- 
dened heart, "My brother, oh! my brother! is the mys- 
tery of life and death solved? Is the mystery of the 
death — the tragic death — of that boy explained? Are 
you satisfied that what then seemed so grievous and 
terrible is well for you and best for the child?" 

This is not the time nor occasion to give Franklin 
Pierce his just and true position as a politician and states- 
man. He lived at a period in our history when the people 
of the United States were divided. We begin to learn 
that there were patriotic men South as well as North; 
we begin to learn that as true hearts beat under the out- 



92 

ward covering of the gray as the blue; we begin to learn 
that Stonewall Jackson of Virginia was as pure and honest 
in heart and as true in patriotic principle, as he saw his 
duty in the sacrifice of his life, as any Northern man. 

We begin to learn that Daniel Webster, Franklin 
Pierce, and many who agreed with them were as truly 
patriotic as those who reviled them. We begin to feel 
with Lincoln "Charity for all." 

In this charitable spirit may we not expect, when all 
partisan bitterness has faded away, and when the future 
historian shall in historic perspective consider the sur- 
roundings, the education, the prejudices, and the motives 
of all men, North and South, that by the side of Daniel 
Webster in patriotic devotion to his country will stand 
our Franklin Pierce? 

Brethren, I have presented Franklin Pierce as a New 
Hampshire lawyer as well as the limits of this occasion 
and my ability will allow. 

He had his failings, as may be said of every one of us, 
and they have been exaggerated. I am not here to excuse 
or condone them. He was our brother lawyer. He was 
a son of New Hampshire, honored more by high official 
positions and more loved and idolized in his day than 
any other member of our profession in this state. 

As a lawyer his integrity, fearlessness, indomitable 
industry and enthusiasm were unsurpassed in the history 
of our profession in the state. He was persuasive and 
resistless by sincere superiority; as an advocate he had 
no equal among us. He never had a fair-minded client 
find fault with his efforts. No lawyer of his years in the 
profession ever had so many grateful and enthusiastic 
clients. 

If the veterans of the Revolution and of 1812 and 
their descendants who knew him could speak; if his 
townspeople and others who knew him from childhood 



93 

to mature years could speak; if thousands of people who 
knew the tenderness of his heart and the generosity of 
his instincts, and the lavish wealth of his affectionate 
nature could speak, forgetting or disregarding him as a 
lawyer, senator, general and president, they would point 
to the crowning glory of his life, his kindness, his gener- 
osity, his unselfishness and his true and enduring friend- 
ship. 

His name upon our records will be to us, and to those 
who shall come after us, an inspiration to loftier ideals 
in our profession and to nobler ambition in citizenship. 



